


some air'd be good for you

by roommate



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M, Magical Realism, Medical Experimentation, Minor Character Death, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 16:42:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 74,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3985345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roommate/pseuds/roommate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joonmyun makes certain changes in his schedule to accommodate certain people. And with that comes hollowing out a portion of his heart for someone to find a home in. (<b>Warning/s:</b> drama, mentions of character death and accidents, mentions of blood, hints of self-destructive behavior, weird medical practices, magic shenanigans | Written for nachtegael at <a href="http://suholiday.livejournal.com/46102.html">suholiday 2015</a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



Joonmyun barges through the doors of the operating room, all suited up and ready to work. The latex wound around his hands is hot, tight, itchy. The many layers of clothes he's wearing makes him feel like he's going to war more than anything else. And maybe he is, he muses as he nods at one of the assistants and slips on his head gear, a thin sheet of glass covering his eyes. The flurry of people moving around him is beginning to look like soldiers rushing into war. The exchange of stern glances has fast become survival signals. The steady beeping is the countdown to the next attack. Or maybe the screams of people, all of them asking to be saved. And the bloody figure in front of him – a victim of the chaos, the lone casualty of the war. The very reason Joonmyun's in the operating room, in the first place, hands held up and facing his body as he tries to even out his breathing.

The bright red liquid fades into something lighter, a bit more dull. Turns into something translucent. His breath hitches. He can feel the thumping in his chest quicken, can feel the heavy beats crawl down to the back of his elbows, knees, ears, until he can hear nothing but the sound of his own heart.

One shrill beep, and his body gives a tiny jerk. "His heart rate keeps going up," Jongdae tells him, eyebrows furrowed. "What do we do now?"

If this were any other operation then Joonmyun would say, check the valves, we can't let them collapse. Let's open him up, see what we can fix. _We'll figure this out._ But it isn't. The man before him is fast losing all the color in his body, the expanse of his chest going translucent. He's completely disappeared from the knees down. The battery in his heart is running out of energy and how the _hell_ do you take it out when you can't even see three quarters of it? Stick your hand in the hollow cavity of the man's chest without knowing what you might be digging into? Just wade your way through the vessels, try to stick a pacemaker inside, hope for the best? It's useless. They'll only complicate the situation, end the man's life much faster, get their hands all bloodied and their careers tarnished forever.

"Doctor–" Jongdae grabs him by the elbow and yanks him forward, closer, back to reality. Behind them, the heart monitor beeps fast, three consecutive counts, before it slows down again. It picks up pace just a few seconds after. He takes a deep breath, then, exhaling only when he feels Jongdae's grip on him tighten. " _Hyung,_ come on, we can still make this work–"

Three years ago, Joonmyun would have said the same thing. He was still young then, naive and juvenile and foolish. He was scrubbing in for the first time. He fumbled with his surgical gloves and Kim-sonsaengnim laughed at him silly. It was his first time handling the case of a dying – no, a _disappearing_ man. So it made sense for him to still carry around an ounce of hope, a vial of faith. That magic word for ‘survival' at the tip of his tongue. But as you grow older, as you get more exposed to disasters and deaths and lack of second chances, you lose hope bit by bit, then all at once.

The monitor beeps again, loud and unsteady. Joonmyun takes a deep breath. When he shifts to his side, he tells Jongdae, "Clear the room."

"What? That doesn't make sense–"

"I said, clear the room–"

A long and loud beep soon spills into the four corners of the closed space, crawls along the walls and snakes up Joonmyun's nape until he shivers. He feels a traitorous cold wrap around his neck, tighten its grip on him. Make him choke. " _Leave,_ " he tells Jongdae, then lunges forward, feels around for the man's heartbeat on the translucent chest and lets his hands hover. He doesn't start pumping until the assistants begin to shuffle out of the room, until Jongdae looks over his shoulder to lock eyes with him before shutting the door closed. In the silence of the room, with nothing but the low, loud beep permeating the thick walls of the white noise, he maps out a path up the man's chest and holds his hands down on where his skin, translucent, almost transparent, feels the warmest.

A faint thump against his skin, close to his pulse, and he picks up his pace, pressing down even harder as he tries to silence the shrill beeping sound.

He doesn't stop pumping.

☂

Joonmyun takes a deep, deep breath, inhaling noisily through his nose. His body gives a tiny jerk as he looks around, taking in the details of his surroundings. He can feel one end of his comforter bunching up to his chin; the other end, crawling up his legs. Beside him, the hotdog pillow has rolled off close to the edge. He lifts his gaze, then, takes in the sight of a field of grass just beyond his window. It's the same scene that has greeted him in the morning for the past few years, the same scene that helps keep him in check, make sure he's here, in this moment, and not stuck in the past. And it's the same scene that tells him that he'd fallen asleep last night without closing the blinds again. Fourth day in a row now, a voice at the back of his mind says. If this keeps up, he'll end up getting coughs and colds again in a day or two.

It's a dream, just a dream, he tells himself. He rolls over, burying his face in his pillow, and takes a deep breath. _It won’t ever happen again. It's just a dream._

He shifts his glance to his right, up ahead where a wall clock rests against the wall. Five in the morning, the hands read. It's still too early to get up, roll out of bed, steady himself on his feet and drag himself out of his room. On most days, he gets up at seven or eight in the morning, feeling refreshed from whatever reading or writing he'd done the night before, but today isn't quite one of those days. Sehun's set to leave for a long overdue trip up north to see different things, sights he can't find here in their Wonju-si. Sehun hopes to get a glimpse of the sea, the one that separates South Korea from neighboring countries just beyond the expanse of water. He plans to go by foot so that he can see more things, meet more people, experience events in his life that he'd probably never do on a normal day. He's hoping to get out, no longer stuck in the place he’d been confined in for years, ever since he made a promise with the devil and sold his soul.

“You’re _hardly_ the devil,” Sehun would always tell him, then brush his knuckles along Joonmyun’s cheek. Sehun would smile, then, small and tight at the corners, before adding, “Besides, I brought this upon myself. _I_ made this choice. And I don’t regret it one bit."

"Lies," Joonmyun remembers saying then. Sehun widened his eyes. His cheek muscles were tight, tense. It made Sehun look like the same kid Joonmyun had operated on four years ago, the last operation he’d done in his career, clinging onto the last strings of survival after falling victim to a car accident. He wasn't even supposed to be a casualty – he was just walking along the sidewalk; misfortune just got in the way.

Two heartbeats after, Joonmyun took it back, laughing as he shook his head. "Fine, fine, you're a nice and wonderful kid. I'm the awful one," he'd said in response and threaded his fingers through Sehun's hair. Gave the soft tuft a light ruffle before pulling away. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have thought of you that way."

Sehun looked up at him through the slits of his bangs and licked his lips, parting them. For a moment, it looked as if he was about to say something, about to retort, but soon Sehun was pressing them together in a thin line again. So Joonmyun said nothing more, kept his questions to himself and pushed the voices in his head to the deepest recesses of his mind. If Sehun wanted to say something then he would have done so a long time ago. Sehun wasn't the best at keeping his own secrets, after all; he always had to tell someone, or at least write them down.

"I see you're awake, master," comes Sehun's greeting, voice cracking somewhere along the way. Joonmyun squints just a little, trying to make out what Sehun's doing with one of his hands stuck inside his luggage. Stuffing a thick jacket inside for his trip to the mountains at the height of spring? Maybe. Sehun hasn't been outside in a while; he's just making sure he doesn't run into any temperature problems. "I've already brewed coffee but I haven't made toast yet. Or did you want a traditional Korean breakfast as my parting gift before I leave?"

Joonmyun laughs a little. "You sound funny talking to me like that." He walks over, fluffing Sehun's hair, and Sehun almost instantly leans into the touch. "Snap out of it," he says, then chuckles when the hem of Sehun's sleeve gets stuck in the zipper. "C'mon, get up. Fix the table. I'll go make us some breakfast."

"I'm not letting you burn down your mansion, hyung. It's too pretty," Sehun mutters, but allows himself to be dragged away, anyway. He drags his feet, maybe on purpose, and wraps his fingers around Joonmyun's wrist in a gesture that Joonmyun is sure – or at least half certain – is meant to tease more than to hold him back. "I'll cook. You make the table. Then you can sip your coffee while waiting."

"Oh, you're ordering me around now?"

Sehun huffs. Juts out his bottom lip as he narrows his eyes, as well, but doesn't quite tighten his grip of Joonmyun. If anything, he even loosens it a little, settles for a comfortable hold on Joonmyun that Joonmyun can easily shake off if he so desires. But then this is Sehun – Sehun who has spent too many years looking after him, Sehun who has committed himself to staying in this house, this 'mansion', as he fondly calls it, miles away from the main city. The same person who'd pick Joonmyun up from the laboratories without question, wouldn't even ask about the look on Joonmyun's face if he ever had to fetch Joonmyun after the latter lost one of this most important patients. Wouldn't think of anything else but pulling Joonmyun close to his chest until Joonmyun felt light, comfortable. At ease.

"You–" Sehun points an accusing finger at him, then drops it a few seconds after. His lips hang parted, the sound of his shallow breathing spilling from his lips. The corners of his mouth are turned up, though. Half of Joonmyun wants to reach out, tiptoe, press his palms to Sehun's cheeks just to tick him off (or be allowed to drink an extra cup of coffee this morning), but half of him just wants to stay in this moment forever, where nothing but the warmth of Sehun's smile and the sound of his bright yet hiccuped chuckles matter. " _You_ are crazy. Crazy! I don't even know why I put up with you!"

"I don't why I put up with _you,_ " Joonmyun counters. He races Sehun to the kitchen, claiming ownership cooking duties for the morning even before Sehun can retort. "Please, just this once. Allow me to do something for you."

Sehun purses his lips. This is his 'you don't have to, hyung, and I swear I'd have already kicked your ass already for being too nice if you hadn't saved my life before' look. The last time he wore it was two weeks ago, when Joonmyun requested that Sehun go somewhere far away to rest, recharge, see new things and explore new places. To date, it has never seen any success against Joonmyun. Still, he fashions it for the next ten, fifteen minutes, up until Joonmyun tells him to reheat the coffee, _please fix the table already._ "I made the stew extra spicy. You like it that way, right?"

"You remembered?" Sehun asks. He cocks an eyebrow at Joonmyun, then drops his gaze to the boiling red stew Joonmyun sets down in front of him. The heat reaches Joonmyun's eyes, makes them water for a while until he's wiping them with the back of his balled fists. "Wow, that looks _hella_ spicy."

"The kimchi juice is from the first batch of spring kimchi that you made. The best of the bunch," Joonmyun comments. He fixes the food containers on the table, arranges them in the order that he knows Sehun gets his food – sundubu to his right, a couple of seasoned green leaves to his left. An entire platter with strips of grilled meat that they can share between them because Sehun doesn't eat that much in the morning. Meat for lunch is an entirely different story, though. "How long did you leave that to ferment again? A quarter–"

"I missed hearing you talk like this, hyung," Sehun comments through a mouthful of kimchi. He swallows hard around the food he'd just taken in, then licks his lips before continuing, "You sound so... relaxed. Like you're not thinking about too many things for the first time in so long."

Funny you should say that, Joonmyun wants to answer. Exactly five years ago from this day, he'd walked into an operating room knowing that the outcome of the first time he'd operated on the man on the table? It would be different from the result of the operation that day. The complete opposite. He'd already accepted it even before he pushed the doors open with his forearms, but until this very day the memory of the operation – or what would have been an operation if he just did _something_ – still haunts him. It follows him around, sticks to him like a leech and sucks all the energy from his body. He's just become better at hiding it, but that doesn't mean he thinks about that event any less.

Five years. Five years is a long time. It still feels like yesterday, though, that he'd felt the faint pulse against his skin dissipate, that he'd seen the man on the table turn translucent from the knees up until the only thing Joonmyun could see was his face, his pretty lips, his long eyelashes. But it's been five long years and too many sleepless nights since that happened; the least he should be doing is pushing that memory to the very back of his mind. The most, taking tiny steps towards moving on.

Joonmyun lets out a long and loud exhale. He can feel the thundering pulse on the base of his throat. "It's just too early for me to use my scholar-level vocabulary," he argues, trying to summon a smile to his lips. He chuckles when he feels the pull at his cheeks. "So you're just lucky. Enjoy this while you still can."

Sehun looks up from where he's been sipping the stew and laughs a little. "You bet, I will," he replies. The liquid bubbles on his lips for a moment. It's gross, Joonmyun thinks, but the the wicked grin that stretches across Sehun's lips is almost worth it. "And maybe I should make you cook breakfast more often, hyung. This is _good._ "

"Who said I was going to burn the mansion down again, hmm?"

Sehun groans. "I was kidding." A tug on Joonmyun's sleeve, then, "Hyung, you have to make this again. It's been ages since we last had kimchi jjigae!"

The first bus out of the city arrives at nine in the morning. It's only half past five. Sehun on his third round of the stew, but the bowl seems to never run out of soup. And the coffee's still hot, just the right temperature for Joonmyun to take a sip without any fear of getting scalded. So Joonmyun takes his time, listens to Sehun talk about his late night packing dilemma and having to go through all of his luggages for the trip _at least thrice_ the night before. "I'm never going on a trip with you," Joonmyun mutters, frowning for effect, and Sehun only ever rolls his eyes at him in response before saying, "You _know_ you can't live without me. You need me in your life."

A half truth, Joonmyun wants to say. It's one thing to have a mansion that keeps giving without asking for anything in return, but it's another to have someone around, someone to talk to. A warm body to keep him company during cold winter nights and hold him close when the nightmares begin to get the better of him.

The hours dissolve into minutes, and the next thing Joonmyun knows he's helping Sehun position his luggages near the front door. "Are you _sure_ you'll be alright here all alone? I can– I can cancel the trip or something. Or maybe you can make an emergency booking?" Sehun asks for the third time in the past five minutes, drawling his syllables this time like it makes a difference. It doesn't. It does make Joonmyun's chest tighten, though, make his throat go dry and the pulse at the back of his elbows thump even harder. He can't hear anything beyond the loud beating in his chest, or the voices at the back of his mind, saying, _You keep pushing people away, Joonmyun. Are you really doing this to him, your brother? Are you really making Sehun leave?_ So he takes a deep breath, tries to flush all the noise from his system, and focuses on nothing else but the sound of Sehun's voice. "Hyung, I told you, I don't _need_ this vacation–"

"You do," Joonmyun whispers. He reaches for Sehun's hands and gives them a tight squeeze. "You just don't know it yet, but you need this," he continues. He laughs, then, when he feels his lips tremble, when he feels a traitorous cold wrap around his throat to pull out all the words he's been pushing down to the pit of his stomach for the longest time for fear of letting them out in a clumsy enunciation. "I mean, maybe I'll be able to catch some sun now. Water the flowers at the back or... plant some new trees? I won't get bored."

"That's the least of my worries, hyung," Sehun replies. He chuckles, then shakes his head, one corner of his lips pulling down to a tight frown. "But _eh,_ you do what you want to do. Build a new garden in the backyard, or maybe even a forest. And if you ever get lazy, just turn on the sprinkler system."

Joonmyun furrows his eyebrows. "We have that?"

Sehun snorts. "Hyung, you're the one who built this place." He takes a deep breath, then lets out a long and breathy sigh. "How could you forget?"

He hasn't forgotten. He still knows where he'd kept his old clothes from when he was in primary school. He still knows where he'd dumped the old exercise equipment he never got to raffling off or giving to charity. He still knows where his old research materials are for the first ever project he's worked on after being accepted into the institution as a neuroscientist-slash-jack-of-all-trades. And he remembers, more than anything else, the feeling of stepping inside this mansion for the very first time, his hand rested on the small of someone back, ushering his companion inside–

He shuts his eyes tight and takes a deep breath. There are some things that he should have forgotten by now; it's just that they keep coming back to haunt him, plague him. It's like an itch that won't fade even long after he's washed himself clean or emptied out a bottle of alcohol onto his skin, only to end up feeling like he's burnt his own skin. It's stupid. His memory is impeccable; it's both a blessing and a curse.

He says none of those though, instead answers, "Because you don't let me near the knobs, I guess?" He massages his nape, trying to ease the tension at the base. It's feels a bit too cold outside, what with the winds blowing against his face. He hasn't felt real breeze in a long, long time. "Because you keep telling me you're capable of doing everything, yourself, and I, being the _wonderful person that I am,_ just let you do your thing?"

"Yeah, yeah, keep praising yourself. You love yourself too much," Sehun groans. He picks up the last and the heaviest luggage from the other side of the door, then takes careful steps as he sets it at the foot of the stairs. One loud exhale, then he turns to look at Joonmyun with lips pressed together in a thin, thin line. "I guess this is it, huh?"

Joonmyun gulps down hard, forcing the corners of his lips to pull when he finishes. He can feel the strain on his muscles, can taste the sick mix of blood and metal in his throat. He can hear the winds of spring howling, can feel them slapping him on the cheek and making his skin burn. And he can see the light trembling of Sehun's lips, the way the wind messes up his hair and paints his cheeks a warm glow. So this is how mothers who send off their kids to school feel when they have to let go, Joonmyun muses. There's a promise of coming home, yes, but in those few hours of being apart there's also the risk of getting into an adventure they'd never signed themselves up for.

"This is it," he whispers in response. He smiles. "Go. You'll miss your bus to the drop-off point. You weren't serious when you said you wanted to walk all the way, were you?"

Sehun laughs, bright and brazen, cutting through the whistling of the winds. "I would've if you just let me," he says, half grumbling, half chuckling, but for the most part he's just trying to keep himself together, trying not to cackle again. So Sehun takes a few steps back, wraps his arms around Joonmyun for one last time and whispers into Joonmyun's hair, "I'll be back, hyung. I promise, I'll come back."

"You better," Joonmyun whispers. He pinches Sehun in his side, then offers him one last smile before pulling away. "I'll make sure to cook jjigae for you again when you come home."

With one last wave over his shoulder, Sehun starts walking forward, dragging his luggages behind him. The sound of the wheels scraping the asphalt makes Joonmyun shiver; the heavy thumping at the back of his ears makes his knees shake. A few more seconds and Sehun's now out of sight, disappearing around the block and well out of Joonmyun's perimeter. Joonmyun shuts the door, then, pulling both handles in and listening for the gentle 'click' that the locks make when the doors align.

"Have fun," he whispers to nothing, no one in particular. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

To himself, he says, don't do anything weird again. Don't you _dare_ look back.

☂

When you live ten long years of your life without attempting to do chores other than making sure that your work desk isn't housing bugs yet, actually rolling up your sleeves to do housework becomes more of a _chore_ than anything else. The first day Sehun was away, Joonmyun took twenty minutes – twenty whole minutes – to wash the dishes that only he had used, pots and pans included. Sweeping the floor on the first two levels of the mansion took fifteen minutes each, mostly because of the sheer size of the place than anything else. Sure, the mansion was built to clean itself, repair whatever is broken and polish it until it looks brand new again, but magic, even with the help of technology, can only do so much. There will always be that one spot that Joonmyun has to wipe, or a corner of a room, hidden from the public eye, that has accumulated more dust than necessary. There will always be a smidgen of dirt somewhere tainting the walls of the house that Joonmyun had built to be perfect. And there will always be traces of the past scribbled on every surface there is.

"So how have you been living your life, Kim Joonmyun?" he asks himself when he looks up from where he's been washing his hands, rubbing the grime off his arms. His reflection on the mirror is laughing, the corners of his mouth tugged up, but his cheeks feel like they're being pulled all the way down. The tension makes him shiver, makes his stomach lurch. Years ago, he would've looked at himself in the mirror and said the same thing, except there would be some behind him, chin tucked on his shoulder. And he wouldn't even get the chance to look. He'd be busy trying to breathe through the tight press of his lips against someone else's, too busy trying to think where to put his hands – the man's waist, his face, his hair? Or would it be better if he stuck his hand down his pants–

He blinks a few times, trying to refocus his vision. Things are different now. It's been too long to be holding onto images of the past. Now, years after that mishap in the operating room, he's alone in the bathroom without someone to steal all of his attention. His bangs are pulled back instead of just covering his eyes. And there are dark circles under his eyes that he's never taken notice of before. He runs his thumbs along them, then, wincing when some soap gets in his eyes.

"You just _love_ hurting yourself, don't you?" he grumbles. The sting makes his skin red, makes his eyes burn. He'll regret this later, when he shuffles back to his study to work on research materials and read another one of the books in his shelves that he has already read, but for now he'll content himself with this – water wrapping around his skin like a quilt, easing the pain of the burn, and reminding him that there are things that he can brush off and let time wash away.

He just has to want it, want is so badly. He just has to try.

☂

His second day of solitude in the mansion sees him making progress in living alone and doing things for himself. He wakes up to soft sunlight, diffused by the blinds in his room, spilling on his skin. His back doesn't hurt as much as it normally does; maybe he'd slept flat on his back for hours instead of being curled up in one side, comforters bunching around him. Cooking has never been a problem for him, but he's never been able to work with the coffeemaker so somehow coaxing two good shots of espresso from it for his Americano is a pleasant surprise. Then, while setting the table, he discovers that he'd actually put back the utensils in the proper place last night, before going to bed. Sehun will be _proud_ of him, even more so when Sehun learns that from yesterday up until this moment when Joonmyun rinses soap off of his dishes for the morning, he hasn't broken anything. Yet.

"I'm not clumsy. It's just that my motor skills don't cooperate with me sometimes," he remembers arguing with Sehun before, when he'd somehow twisted his ankle going down the stairs. Sehun chucked a couple of ice cubes in his direction, but pressed an ice pack to the swollen area, anyway. Joonmyun tried to smile through the traitorous cold crawling up the back of his knees. "And the stairs were slippery. So don't blame me; blame the stairs."

"Yeah, you're blaming your creation," Sehun had said then. He pressed down harder on the ice pack. Joonmyun grimaced in response. "Everybody does stupid things sometimes, hyung. No need to get so defensive about _twisting your ankle–_ "

But a moment of weakness is a lifetime of regret, he wanted to tell Sehun then. Wants to tell himself now as he grips his glass tight while he rubs the suds off the surface with his thumb. He doesn't break this one, either, but he might as well have with the way he's gripping it so tight that his skin squeaks against the surface. He loosens his grip a bit, then, and places it on the rack once he's done. Tells himself, it's just a glass. Don't take out your problems on it like you do with your research work–

He looks up where he's just finished arranging the plates in a neat column and cranes his neck, trying to locate the source of the sound. He's pretty sure he'd heard the sound of bells earlier, but _where?_ It's too bright a sound that not even the sound of rushing water drowned it out just a few seconds, too bright that it rings in Joonmyun's ears until now, seconds after the sound drops, cracks, then peaks again.

"Can't be too far," he mumbles as he walks to the front door, pace quickening with every second. He can feel the burn in his thighs, in his calves from walking too fast. He's never had a reason to rush in a long, long time, after all; here, in the comforts of his mansion, everything adjusts to his whims, to his needs. But the ringing just won't stop. It's out of his control, and it grows louder with each forward step, with each forward movement he makes, thinning the distance between him and the source.

The ringing comes to a halt. Surfaces for a few seconds, until it gains full volume again. Joonmyun presses his ear to the door, then, moving inch by inch to his side as he tries to move closer to the source, to pin down where that _noise_ is coming from and make it stop–

"Hmm, looks like no one's home," comes an unfamiliar voice. It sounds light and faint, almost like a whisper. There's a bit of melody to it, though, in the way the man's – that's a man, right? – voice lilts. It's almost as if he's singing. But then Joonmyun hasn't heard much human voices in a while. Not that he has to when he gets an earful of Sehun's own when Sehun talks his head off four hours, just telling him about what he'd seen in their backyard, _I think we've grown garden gnomes there, hyung!_ "Strange. I'm right on schedule. It's... ten in the morning–"

Joonmyun peeks from a corner of the window and blinks a few times, trying to get a glimpse of the man better. He catches sight of stripes of red and blue on the man's shirt. Khaki, as well, for the man's pants, tattered in some parts. Fashion, he remembers Sehun telling him one Sunday when Sehun sauntered around the house in torn jeans. He remembers grimacing at the sight, as well, and telling Sehun to 'wear something more house-appropriate', but the way the material hugs the man's legs is... different. Sort of like it makes his legs look longer and his shoes that have seen better days actually acceptable.

Joonmyun gulps down hard. He's tempted to turn the knob, swing the door open to tell the man that, your shoelaces aren't done, sir. You'll want to tie them if you don't want to trip? But then he hasn't had human interaction in _years_. All the research work he's done for the institution? He sends those through mail. He needs to collaborate on some data analysis? He buzzes his fellow scientists on messenger and talks with them there. Somehow, he's never felt the need to pick up a phone and hear a voice other than that of Sehun's, or even seek a different brand of warmth for the past five years. There _were_ times when he had to do video conferences with people, but given the chance he'd tap out at the first opportunity and seek Sehun out, ask how his day has been, _have you done the dishes already?_ Sehun has always been just beside him, after all, just an arm's length away.

And the last time he'd craved a touch much more personal than that of Sehun's warm hugs, he lost someone dear to him. He isn't ready to take another blow to his chest just yet. He probably never will be.

"–some other day, then," comes the same voice, and then the man's walking away, his footsteps swallowed by the shrill ringing of the bell. Joonmyun pulls away, then, inches away from the sides of the window and moves to the other side, but he doesn't tear his eyes from the man's retreating figure just yet. Instead, he follows him until he disappears around the block, right of his mansion, stays just close enough to the glass to hear the last few beats of the bell before they fade into silence, to feel the heat of the sun prickling his skin.

He takes a step back and presses his palm to his cheek. It burns.

☂

The thing with building a house as big as this, Joonmyun muses, is that you're bound to get lost in it at some point. There are too many doors, too many passageways to go through. Too many wicked turns of the corner that can and will inevitably lead you to the last place you'd like to be in. It's almost impossible to find your way back unless you've lived in the house your whole life, and even then there's always the chance of arriving at a different end point. "Screw magical mansions," he remembers a familiar voice saying one time. "I swear to _God_ , if I could just walk faster then I'd be out of here in a blink of an eye–"

Joonmyun stops in his tracks, eyes widening when he sees a huge brown wall pressed to his forehead. He takes a deep breath and looks at either side of him, then over his shoulder. His forehead feels numb, sort of, but the dull ache leaves just as soon as laughter begins to tickle his throat. This is stupid. _He_ feels pretty stupid right now, almost running into a door in a house that he, himself, had built. Already the fifth day of being alone in the mansion and you'd think muscle memory has somehow reminded him of the places he has to go to, but no – he's old, worn down, tired. He _has been_ for the past half a decade. He's only just started picking himself up again and trying to walk away from the past that has tied him down.

He looks outside the window, craning his neck to see if there are people passing by the mansion. There's nothing but emptiness, though, nothing but the flowers lined along the front of his mansion breathing color into the place. A few tiny birds landing on the mailbox from time to time, as well, but for the most part there's nothing, no one else in the area. It's the kind of silence that makes Joonmyun shiver, makes him shake a little and wrap his arms around himself. He rubs his hands up and down his arms before before pressing his ear to the door right in front of him. With only ten minutes left until the clock strikes ten, he's supposed to be looking for the chimes Jongdae had sent over from Jeju as a present last Christmas. He'd seen one on the lifestyle channel last night, while he was trying to not let the silence get to him too much and too hard, and got the weirdest urge to hang one up near the door. All the doors they use here in the mansion on a daily basis, at least. "Sehun would like that," he remembers telling no one in particular, words tangled in the wind. Sehun won't have to get all jumpy when Joonmyun walks into any of the rooms he's in anymore, won't have to shoot him a stern glance and mumble, " _Never_ do that again, hyung, or I'll kill you. I swear to God, I will."

Joonmyun snorts. He swings the door forward, coughing as soon as he gets a whiff of– "Wow, I need to fix the auto-cleaning system," he mumbles. It smells like old rags and murky water in here, smells like the room hasn't been cleaned in years. Or even checked the slightest bit, because Joonmyun felt the resistance in the knob earlier when he'd turned it to undo the lock. It's dark all around and he runs his hands up the sides of the door, feeling for a switch, any switch at all, but to no avail – there doesn't even seem to be a light bulb in here, not a single window or a hint of an opening where light can come through.

He walks even deeper into the room, taking slow and careful steps as he looks around. He can make out the figures of a counter nearby, a long table beside it and two stools pressed close to the surface. Somewhere to the right, there's a sink, and then clotheslines hanging from one side of the room to another. There are still these tiny pieces of paper hanging from them. More like _boards_ with something drawn on one side, scribbles in black ink somewhere close to the bottom of each board and images up to.

Joonmyun takes a deep, deep breath. Chokes on air, as well, as soon as he feels dust clogging his nose and stunning him, keeping him rooted in his spot, keeping him from running away. He can still remember the last time he was here, ten years and a couple of months ago – he was watching over someone's shoulder, mumbling through the press of the mask to his lips, "How can you stand this scent? It's awful. Makes me want to throw up." But the man pressed on, didn't even look at him, just kept pouring the liquid onto the rectangular tray before laying one of the papers on it. "This is only step one, isn't it?"

"You can't stand the scent of a developer but you're okay with staying exposed to all sorts of chemicals all the time?" The man chuckled that time, bright and right. Joonmyun shivers now, ten years after, at the mere memory, at the mere thought of the man's smile, the feeling of his warm breath against his skin. He closes his eyes, breathes in deep as he hears a voice at the back of his mind say, "C'mon, hyung, just say it: you hate it when I've got my hands on something other than you."

"That's the worst pick up line ever," Joonmyun whispers, the words tumbling from his lips like they've always been there, just waiting for a clumsy enunciation. He curls his fingers in when he feels a traitorous cold crawl up his arms, wrap out his elbows. Journey further north until it can choke Joonmyun by the throat and make breathing a chore. "The _absolute_ worst–"

He takes a step back, then another, and another, until he feels his back hit the door. Turns around and twists the knob, as well, swinging the door open at the first opportunity. Fresh air hits him, flushes inside his system like he's been deprived of it, and soon he's breathing out in dry heaves each three seconds apart. He still can't see clearly – his glasses must be... somewhere down there, knocked down to the floor when he'd rushed out of the room – but he can make out the familiar blotches of color now – the lighter brown of the other door, the greens and yellows on either side of him, reminiscent of how the corridors look. The flesh of his hands, and the bright white of his pants.

“Still here,” he whispers to himself. He can still see all of his fingers, albeit blurred, against the material of his trousers, can still see the veins drawn along his skin. He can still feel the strong pulse in his palms, can still hear the loud thumping at the back of ears. The voice at the back of his head that can only belong to that one person other than Sehun who he’s let inside his room at two in the morning, all of his defenses down, his heart worn brightly on his sleeve.

Three rings of the bell, then he bolts up from his position. He drops his gaze to his wrist watch and takes a deep breath. It’s only been ten minutes since he’d entered the room but already feels like he’s been stuck there for hours, for an entire lifetime. And he'd know how it feels to be stuck – he's been trapped in that state for the past ten years now, he might as well be floating in space and just existing instead of truly living.

His body gives another jerk at the next ringing of the bells, three beats to the five counts of the heavy thumping in his chest. "Two more," he mutters as he moves closer to the door, steps drawn out, dragged one after another. Bells boy (still unnamed; he isn't wearing a name tag, after all, and Joonmyun's not the type to just give real people legitimate-sounding names on a whim) should be a few good meters away. Five, maybe six? He doesn't walk fast. Or he hasn't been walking that fast, at least, in the three days that Joonmyun has been spending his 10 a.m.'s just near the window, the tuft of his hair peeking from the base of the window sill as he tries to get a good look at the man who keeps passing by his house at a specific time. He'll crane his neck when he catches sight of the front of bells boy's cart, then try to get a glimpse of his face and what he's selling. It’s almost always milk, the bottles arranged in these neat lines. Sometimes, he sells some rice cakes and other snacks. Joonmyun will try to create a profile of bells boy in his mind as the man spends a good three minutes ringing the bell so close to the door. Routine – it's one of those things that puts Joonmyun's heart at ease. In those three days that he's been watching the bells boy, he's somehow carved a small space for that stranger in his strict schedule – ten in the morning without fail, always wearing a bright smile and not a hint of fatigue despite the heat of the sun outside.

Another set of shrill beats. Joonmyun shivers and pulls away a little, just enough for the distance to soften the sound. Now here, from where he is, he can make out the details of the man's features better, just snapshots of who the man is – the shallow shadow on his cheeks when he smiles as he hums a song while going on his merry way, the way his dimples color his cheeks when he grins at nothing amusing in particular. Or maybe there _is_ something interesting out there, close to where the flowers he'd planted years ago are supposed to be because bells boy keeps staying there for three minutes before leaving completely and stepping out of Joonmyun's line of sight. Maybe he's grown cacti there over the years and he just doesn't know it. Maybe there's an abandoned cat or dog at his doorstep; who knows? He hasn't been out of his house for years that he won't be surprised if the rest of the world has moved on without him.

Joonmyun takes a leap of faith, then, eases the burn in his knees as he tries to stand upright and just peek from the frame of the window. He still won't get seen, after all; no harm done. But his body gets the better of him, makes his knees lock and makes him cringe in pain when he feels a sharp, cutting sensation in his joints. "Fucking old age," he groans, resting his forehead against the window. He seethes when he feels the force of the contact, stunning his vision for a moment. "Sehun's going to have a field day if he sees me like th–"

"Oh, hello," comes a familiar voice from the other side of the window. It sounds a lot like a whisper, a distant cry. Like bells ringing in Joonmyun's ears in the morning and shaking the last few dregs of lethargy off his shoulders, or even soft humming that lingers in the air long after someone has turned around a corner. Three raps on the glass, then, "I... have the three bottles of milk that you always order? You probably want to get them now–"

Joonmyun widens his eyes and pushes himself away from the window as soon as everything clicks. The tone, the lilt, that distinct humming between words, those cute little dimples coloring his cheeks and the gentle curls at the corners of his lips – they paint an image too clear in Joonmyun's mind and an image _too real_ right in front of him. He's a good eight, nine inches away from the glass now and it's been close to a minute since he's pulled away from pressing his forehead to the window, but he can still feel the burn on his skin, the back of his eyes when he alternates between staring and blinking far too many times. Can still feel his knees shaking as the man on the other side of the window waves at him and offers him the brightest smile.

He gulps hard. Tries to pull up at the corners of his mouth to offer a smile in return, but he can't even feel his cheeks right now. Can't even feel his fingers even when he keeps tightening the once loose fist he'd curled them in. Without the shadows of the brim of the man's sombrero covering his face, Joonmyun can see the man better. His eyebrows are arched a little. His head is tilted to the site, just a gentle nudge that exposes the curve of his neck. And his eyes are crinkled at the corners, brightening up the rest of his features and taking away the fatigue from the dark circles under his eyes.

He has thin lips, Joonmyun notes. A small mouth that looks like it's been molded to wear a smile all the time. His face is the perfect size and shape for Joonmyun to cup with his hands and maybe pull him closer to examine the tiny details of his face and–

The man disappears for a while, ducking, and the next thing Joonmyun knows the man is dangling two bottles of milk before him. "I have your milk! It's still... warm, though, so I guess it's alright?" A scratch of the nape and a sheepish smile, then, "Sorry for coming late!"

Joonmyun blinks a few times, trying to make sense of things. He heard none of the words bells boy has just said, just caught hints of the muffled sound with the barrier between them keeping Joonmyun from hearing clearly, but he can still remember the movement of the man's mouth mouth, the subtle quirk of his lips set to the sound of every syllable that spilled from them just now. Bells boy enunciates his words well, takes time to pronounce every sound, and by the end of his statement Joonmyun has already listed down three possible things that might get Joonmyun in trouble if he doesn't step to the side and out of the man's line of sight:

One, his lips have a life of their own, always pulling up then down then up again like he hasn't decided how to feel just yet. It's the same brand of uncertainty that leaves Joonmyun feeling so weak, exposed, vulnerable. And he's not sure how he feels about seeing that on someone else;

Two, there's a light in his eyes that Joonmyun hasn't seen in ages. It's as if the man's absorbed too much sunlight and now he's set to explode, ready to wreck havoc upon people. If staring were a superpower well, then, this is it, Joonmyun thinks – he's a lost cause; and

Three, it's six minutes past the hour. Bells boy is sort of late for his milk delivery appointment and Joonmyun's running on a schedule. The first item on his list right now is to inch further away from the glass, step back into the shadows, hide.

So Joonmyun shakes head. He drops his gaze to the floor, his feet, his shaking knees, his hands that are clasped together so tightly that Joonmyun can feel the tension in his muscles at the back of his palms. He takes one step to the side, then another, and another, until all that he can see in front and around him is a his house, pastel yellow walls, the door to his right and the hall leading to his study to his left. He doesn't move even when he hears bells boy's voice again, even when the latter says, "Sir, I've got your milk– Or at least this order's supposed to be dropped off here but I'm pretty sure the guy who picks up the bottles is taller? Sir–" A heartbeat, a hitch of the breath, then, "He–hello?"

"Nobody lives here!" he calls out, then thunks his forehead against the wall when he realizes what he's just done. But then it's a half truth – Joonmyun hasn't been living. He's been floating in space, passing time, just waiting for the house to crumble on him or eat him from the inside then out. He's a shell right now, hollow and without direction. He's _right._ So instead he just retreats even deeper into the hall, away from the light and the noise of bells boy knocking on the door once, twice, thrice.

He shuts the door behind him and locks it, hoping that no distractions will come sauntering in. But the sound of bells still rings in his ears.

☂

The reality is that there are limits as to what the magical mansion can provide for him. He can ask for protection from all sorts of harm, manmade or otherwise, can ask to be recharged to full health so that he can face the new day feeling energized. Heck, he can even ask for the vegetables at the back to regrow as long as he leaves part of the stalk of the brocolli or some seeds from the fruits he loves eating in the ground. But that's the thing – there has to be a tiny kernel of that being still left for the mansion and the magic surrounding to breathe life into, a little _something_ that magic can work on to prolong that piece of matter's existence. It can't just conjure something out of thin air. The mansion is no god, and neither is Joonmyun.

Joonmyun laughs a little, but frowns soon after he sees the state of his fridge. He should have listed the items he's about to run out of. He was supposed to do that last night after dinner, eight in the evening, and right before settling in his study to do some reading and maybe a bit of writing. He has three journals due in two weeks, after all, and Lord knows it's never easy to do academic writing. But then he'd spent a minute too long in the morning thinking of what he should and shouldn't be doing, the many reasons why he hasn't gone out of the house in half a decade and why he actually should. And going off-tangent by just a minute ticks him off, screws up his schedule altogether, messes up with his mind.

He shifts his gaze to his right, to the wall clock nearby. It's only eight in the morning. If he leaves now then he should be able to still catch bells boy at ten. Then maybe he can finally ask for his name five days into watching him from a corner of the window. Not that Joonmyun _finds_ bells boy intriguing; it's just that he's the first human Joonmyun has ever had interaction with in a while. And that's only through a glass. What more if he actually twisted the knob and–

The hands of the clock move. Joonmyun's breath hitches. It's five seconds past the time he's supposed to start preparing for his trip, five seconds off-tangent yet again. There are better things to do than to just stand and stare at his blurry reflection on the sink. He should be getting a move on.

He never makes it past the rug just behind the front door, though. Instead, he takes the passageway at the back, heading to the gardens instead of actually exploring the world outside the perimeters of his property. The fruits are almost ripe and the vegetables are good for harvesting already. The cabbages look like they'd be great for kimchi, too. At an early age, his mother taught him how to pick good vegetables from the overly ripe ones, how to spot good fruits from a pile of ripe-looking ones by the texture of the fruit's skin and the scent that they give off. It's a skill that he's developed through the years and was forced to put into good use when he started living alone. He was only twenty-three then, on his final year of med school, studying the science practicing it on the side. He was concocting all sorts of weird food for himself while thinking of the next antidote to put together for a recently discovered sickness. He was testing things on himself, studying how his body would react to whatever he felt was good to try out on himself at that time. It sounds silly now, almost juvenile and pathetic, but that did the job, didn't it? It earned him his degree and all the distinctions that came with it. It earned him the respect of so many people in both the academe and the industry that he didn't even know was possible. All the experimentation and exploration paid off.

Two years into his medical residency, he'd earn the nickname 'Miracle Maker' after successfully concocting and administering a drug to a veteran, a solider from the war, and be able to prolong his life for ten more years. At the age of twenty-seven, one of his mentors would approach him and tell him that if he ever needed help on reviewing for the licensure exam, if he needed anything at all, then, 'I'm your man.' It was tempting, but he knew he still had a lot of things to learn. There were so many advancements in medicine, after all, that all the information he knew one day might as well be proven fallible only twenty-four hours after.

He'd stop practicing for two years to render military service, but return much more equipped with experience and knowledge on medical practice in the military. Two years after, he'd take the exam and earn his license once and for all. The year after that, he'd be taken in by an institute focusing on special cases in neuroscience – treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder victims through chemicals found in the human body, and possibly extending life. Then, at the turn of the year, on New Year's eve, he'd be called to work to try to operate on a peculiar man, almost the same age as he was, who'd survived a car crash but didn't quite survive it in one piece.

Or maybe he did. It's just that the doctors couldn't find the man's feet, one of his fingers, a patch of skin on his face, because parts of him had gone translucent.

Joonmyun cracks his neck now, trying to refocus. The memories have been coming more often to him recently. Not that they've ever left; he was just better at distracting himself before, with Sehun around to talk his head off on the off chance that Joonmyun didn't have journals to work on.

He snorts. Maybe he should contact the institution, ask for more work so he can get paid a bigger sum. They don't seem to have any qualms with paying him thrice as much as they'd pay a regular neuroscientist, after all.

Satisfied with his harvest for the day, he takes the basket to the kitchen and washes the fruits and vegetables. Five minutes 'til nine in the morning – he's right on schedule. Brewed coffee takes a good five minutes to make, but if he's in the mood for an espresso then he only has to wait for thirty seconds to pull the perfect shot. Then all he has to do is to reheat his leftovers from last night and he's all set.

He takes a deep breath, then lets out a long and loud exhale as he washes the leaves of the cabbage. Seven years ago, the food he kept in the fridge would multiply in three, four hours. He just had to wish hard enough for it to happen. He never had to go out to buy food, never had to leave his home unless he had to go to try to treat another trauma patient in the institution. His work was also at home, lounging on his bed in a deep, deep slumber until nine in the morning. A smidgen of drool flaunted on a corner of mouth as he looked up at Joonmyun and said, "'s it time for m' meds yet?"

"Nope," Joonmyun would say, voice cracking when it peaks. He'd laugh at himself, sigh when Baekhyun looked up at him with the softest, most adoring gaze. And then he'd let himself be pulled back to bed, too many meters away from other work he's supposed to be doing, but ultimately closer to home. "Okay, Baekhyunnie, time to get up–"

"I'm up, I'm up," Baekhyun would reply, then press butterfly kisses along the underside of Joonmyun's jaw. Then he'd roll his hips, rubbing against Joonmyun and grinning in accord.

"I didn't mean _that–_ "

The next thing he knew, Baekhyun was wrapping his arms around Joonmyun's waist and pulling him close until he could bury his face in Joonmyun's chest. He stayed silent there for a few seconds, just blowing hot puffs of breath on Joonmyun's skin through his threadbare shirt instead of blowing something else, just drumming a beat with his cool fingers where he had them pressed to Joonmyun's side. A hitch of the breath, then he looked up and pressed a kiss to Joonmyun's chin before whispering, "Sorry. I know coffee's waiting downstairs but I'm _losing my right leg–_ "

"And I'll save you," Joonmyun said, leaning close to interrupt Baekhyun with a kiss. Baekhyun let out a faint mewl, the corners of his mouth curling up as Joonmyun nibbled on his bottom lip. "I promised I would, remember? And–"

"Kim Joonmyun never breaks his promises," Baekhyun finished. He chuckled, breathed out loud and slow, hot air slithering through the narrow parting of his lips. "Sorry. I– I shouldn't have asked. Should've had more faith in you. You've... never let me down, after all."

Sometimes things unfolded differently – it would be Baekhyun pulling Joonmyun out of bed because, "Hyung, I just made the _yummiest_ – I swear to God it's the yummiest, I'm sure you'll agree – kimchi jjigae _in the world,_ and I just know you'll love it so c'mon!" Sometimes they'd just lie in bed until eleven in the morning, until Baekhyun felt hungry enough that he couldn't ignore his stomach anymore. And sometimes Joonmyun would wake up as early as four in the morning, two hours ahead of schedule, and just watch Baekhyun breathe.

He puts the pressure of the water on high now and relishes the surge of cold up his arms. "Wake up," he tells himself, voice almost dropping to a whisper. He can feel the vibrations of his voice on the base of his throat, though, a lingering tremble that makes him shiver all over. Five years after and it still isn't any easier recalling things of the past. You'd think that time will be able to lift pain, make it dissipate, with relative ease, but no – there are just some wounds that stay with us forever. And Baekhyun is the biggest, deepest scar Joonmyun has scrawled all over his body.

He catches the sound of bells ringing in the background. He furrows his eyebrows. His ears twitch, just a light jerk that makes him take a deep breath and shiver. It's too early for his daily dose of milk, or for these thoughts to come rushing to mind, the back of his elbows, his knees. It's too early to be thinking of anything, at all, but cleaning napa cabbages and beginning his spring kimchi preparations. He won't be having kimchi for the next six, seven days. He deserves it – he was too laid-back, irresponsible. He's grown so accustomed to having Sehun around that even the simplest of things – making sure to turn off the sprinkler system after twenty minutes of usage, removing the plug of the microwave before going up to his room or even when he decides to himself up in his study. Little things, all of them piling on top of each other until they obscure close in on Joonmyun and drown out all the light coming from outside. Trapping him where he’s been all his life without realizing that _he’s_ the one who’s gotten himself stuck all this time.

But–

Another ring of the bell, now accompanied by a knock on the door. "In case you've forgotten, you've already paid for these so–" comes the voice, faint but so distinct that it rings loud and clear in Joonmyun's ears. So he moves closer, gives in, takes big steps until he's just a foot away from the door. "–and you said before that you can't live a day without milk and I'm telling you, going cold turkey is _not healthy–_ "

"I–I'm lactose-intolerant," Joonmyun answers. _Confesses._ He slaps himself in the forehead and mutters, that probably wasn't the best thing to say in reply, especially since this is the first time he's speaking to bells boy. He shouldn't be laying down all his cards just yet. He clenches his fists until he feels his nails digging into his skin. _Look, hyung, I know leaving marks on my skin is your thing but your nails are too long–_ "I mean, the man who buys from you isn't lactose-intolerant but he's not here right now so it won't make sense for me to–"

Bells boy hums. Chuckles, as well, then drums his fingers on the door. That's what it sounds, at least, a weird kind of melody that sounds a lot like the opening beats of a song, something Joonmyun has heard on the radio too many years ago. Or maybe just a few days ago – Sehun makes him listen to all sorts of things from time to time, on the off chance that he can afford to take a break from research work. The melody bells boy makes is easy on the ears, rhythmic enough that Joonmyun begins to sway his head from side to side just a little five beats in. "Well, I figured you were too small to be him," bells boy says after a while, fingers slowing down in their tapping. He picks up where he's left off in his self-composed music, then adds, "He looked taller, long legs and all. And he was in a suit."

Sehun's almost always in a suit during 'office hours'. At 7:01 p.m., right on the dot, he'd excuse himself from whatever he was doing to slip into more comfortable clothes, and in the same manner he'd already be in a suit as early as five in the morning. It helps him 'get into character', Joonmyun remembers Sehun saying one time. He'd thought it was ridiculous, at first. They were the only ones in the house, after all; there wasn't any reason for them to dress up and make themselves look presentable. And people from the institution never came over to his place without prior notice. So he tried to coax Sehun out of the suit the first few days, weeks, months, until he discovered that Sehun enjoyed sewing his own clothes. It was one of the few things that he did back when he still lived _outside,_ in the normal human world where worn-out shoes won't ever get repaired in a blink of an eye, that he was still able to do behind the closed doors of the mansion.

So Joonmyun let him be. Grew accustomed to seeing Sehun in a suit and called Sehun out on growing taller because, "Have those pants always looked too... short on you?"

Sehun narrowed his eyes then and checked the label of his pants. "Pretty sure I'm not wearing your pants, hyung," he'd said before getting the message, eyes widening in accord. " _Oh,_ I thought you're taking a dig at me again."

Half of him was, yes; the other half was wondering how it was possible for Sehun to grow so fast in a house where time slowed down. How Sehun could still keep up with the world outside and how Joonmyun was still stuck in that one moment, five years ago.

Three knocks on the door and Joonmyun's back, body jerking in response. He slaps his face, pinches himself in his side. Seethes when he feels the sting of his nails digging into his skin. He _should_ get to clipping his nails sometime. _Later,_ when bells boy finally goes away. So he takes a deep breath, running through his lines in his head – yes, Sehun's the suit guy and he's the one who loves milk. I'm lactose-intolerant. _Go away._ But somehow, the words get pushed down his throat, shoved all the way to the pit of his stomach when bells boy says, "You'd look good in a suit."

Joonmyun furrows his eyebrows. He risks a glance at bells boy, peeking from the side of the window without making a sound, but– " _Whoa._ " Bells boy is standing right in front of him a foot and a half away, the only thing that's keeping them apart being the glass window, the thickening air between them, Joonmyun's reluctance as he leans back, away from the window. "How– Are you stepping on my plants?"

Bells boy presses his lips in a thin, thin line, eyes going wide as he meets Joonmyun's gaze. He's not wearing his sombrero today. Or maybe not right now, because his hair looks like it's been pressed down and his bangs stick to his forehead. The stray strands at the sides cling to his cheeks, along with the silly smile that stretches his mouth open. And then there it is, the shy dimples on his cheek, tracing deep grooves on his skin and making his smile shine brighter than before. Softening the hard angles of his jaw and lifting the fatigue from his eyes.

Joonmyun gulps hard. His stomach jumps, _hobbles,_ if that's even possible. Lurches like he's eaten one of those scrambled eggs that Sehun makes on a bad, bad day. He inches away. "I can't store these bottles forever!" bells boy calls out, waving the bottles in front of Joonmyun like he means to entire Joonmyun with them. It's useless. But then Joonmyun can't look away, not when bells boy hasn't stopped smiling at him and is still waving those bottles like flags – white flags that he means to hand over to Joonmyun so Joonmyun can finally surrender and take one, two, three steps forward.

Joonmyun shakes his head. Bells boy's shoulders do these cute little jumps that make it look as if he's hiccupping, but _that's not what a hiccup looks like,_ Joonmyun muses. He's studied human actions for years that he knows, he just knows, that this is laughter making its was up from the tips of bells boy's toes to his chest. It's there, in the subtle trembling of his lips and the way his eyes almost, almost, _almost_ turn into slits. "But your friend says milk never goes rotten in your fridge so I really, really need you to take these. Besides, they've already been paid for."

Sehun won't be home again for the next three weeks. Maybe he can just wear bells boy out, make him rap on the door and ring that stupid bell sometime between quarter 'til ten and ten in the morning. The sound isn't so annoying, anyway. But bells boy has been trying to hand him those bottles for the fifth day in a row now. If he ever planned on giving up then he wouldn't pass by Joonmyun's house anymore.

And if Joonmyun had the heart – really had the heart – to drive bells boy away, then he would have said 'no' a long time ago. 'I'm lactose-intolerant' is such a lame excuse for keeping bells boy at an arm's length but not quite pulling away.

"Just... leave them at the doorstep," Joonmyun calls out. Bells boy lifts his eyebrows and grins wider, if that's even possible. It reaches his eyes this time, makes the corners crinkle and makes him look like a kid on Christmas morning.

Joonmyun hasn't experienced a real Christmas for the past five years. It's only spring. But it feels much colder, what with the traitorous sensation crawling up his fingers and making his hands shake. So he digs his hands in his pockets and says again, this time more slowly, "Just leave them _at the doorstep_ and I'll get them later–"

"How will I know that you won't just throw them away?"

Joonmyun blinks a few times. "What?"

"I said–" Bells boys pauses, licking his bottom lip before nibbling on it for a while. "–how will I know that you won't throw them away? Or just leave them there outside, even, to rot? C'mon, it's just milk." Bells boy chuckles. "It's not like I'm selling you drugs or my soul or something."

"I don't... do soul trades," Joonmyun mutters. Shakes his head soon after because, _really, Joonmyun, he didn't have to know that. Now you sound like some weirdo who's trying to deny buying and selling souls in milk bottles._ "I won't throw your milk away. Just leave them there."

"Take them."

He furrows his eyebrows and squints. He takes a deep breath, then says–

Five years ago, if a little girl passed by his home and tried to sell him cookies, he'd twist the door knob without a second thought and swing the door open. Maybe take small piece or two just to humor the little girl because what was there to lose? Three, four minutes of his time, maybe even five? Some of the feeling in his tongue because he never did fancy sweet food? Those were small things compared to the big smile the little girl was offering him. She looked hopeful. And he didn't have anything to do that time. He always had his entire day mapped out, anyway, and he knew for a fact that he had a couple more minutes to spare, take a few won bills from his wallet, hand it over to the kid and walk away feeling ten times better than when he'd opened the door.

And Baekhyun was still asleep, wouldn't be awake for another hour. Baekhyun would probably love to wake up to the scent of cookies and coffee filling his senses. So it was a good idea. He had very little to lose.

The thing is, this isn't _five years ago._ He's much older now, supposedly wiser and certainly more jaded. Bells boy isn't a little girl selling cookies. But the milk he's selling probably goes well with the cookies Sehun kept in the jar on the counter. So he presses his lips together, clenches his fists and digs his nails into his skin at the same time that he mutters, "Hand them over through the small door."

Bells boy chuckles. He takes a deep breath, shoulders lifting, then lets out a long exhale. "Good enough," he says, then steps to his side, inching closer to the door. "Okay, I'm ready!"

Joonmyun cracks his knuckles, then sinks to his knees just in front of the door. He undoes the lock, albeit a bit broken, on the small door, the one he built for the dog he got Baekhyun for Christmas. Kai, that was the puppy's name. He was the most wonderful dog in the world. And Joonmyun never really bothered to expand his world beyond the confines of his mansion. "Ready," he says at the top of his lungs, hoping bells boy would hear it. He knocks on the door, just in case, teases it open until he hears the sound of glass bumping against each other. "Are you alright–"

"Hello," comes a familiar voice. Joonmyun gulps hard. "Hmm, the white shirt looks pretty good on you, though–"

I just came here for the milk, Joonmyun wants to say, but all the words he's strung together leave him, plummet to the ground and scurry away as soon as bells boy's features come into focus. From where Joonmyun is, just six, seven inches away, bells boy looks much younger, brighter, more alive. There are no dark circles under his eyes – Joonmyun's just grown accustomed to the shadows cast by bells boy's sobrero on his cheeks. The dimples are real. There's a constellation of red dots on his skin, possibly from being exposed to the sun for too long a time. His lips are so chapped. And he's inching even closer, like the thick barrier between them isn't enough to make him stay away. "Don't move," Joonmyun says, quick and sharp, and points a finger in bells boy's direction. "Hand over the bottles, _now._ "

Bells boy laughs a little. "Relax, I'm not holding them hostage or anything," he says, voice lilting, then pulls away. Soon, he surfaces with three bottles and slips them in the door one by one, careful in the way he checks and double-checks if the bottles are indeed standing sturdy and secure on the floor. "Here's your milk. Have fun," he adds, then disappears for the briefest moment before resurfacing with three packs of small cookies. Joonmyun's hand hovers the door, prepared to swing it back in place, but then bells boy's wearing the softest smile. And he's reaching out for Joonmyun's wrist with free hand, placing the packs of cookies in Joonmyun's hand until Joonmyun feels the strongest, most powerful jolt of electricity course through his body and pull them apart. " _Ow._ "

"Sorry, I–" Joonmyun drops his gaze to where bells boy had his fingers wound around his wrist, then meets bells boy's gaze. "Thanks for the cookies. And the milk. And sorry, I–"

The next thing he knows, muscle memory's taking over his system and coaxing him to swing the small door forward, shut it tight before he can even think of saying 'sorry' – for the spark, the nasty bump bells boy probably has on his nose right now, for being rude, Joonmyun can't tell yet. All he knows is that his knees feel too weak for him to try to push himself up, back to his feet, that the skin on his wrist feels too hot and too sore.

That bells boy hasn't left yet because he can still hear him breathing, loud and heavy, on the other side of the door.

And that every part of his that bells boy has touched – the tips of his fingers, his wrists, his face from when bells boy had stared at him for the longest time – burns.

☂

Two confessions and a truth: Joonmyun isn't lactose-intolerant. He just hasn't taken coffee with milk in a long, long while. Also, he used to enjoy warm milk in the evening as a kid. With a dash of sugar, to taste.

Joonmyun folds his left leg under his weight and sinks back in his seat. Takes a small sip of his milk, too, and seethes when the liquid scalds his tongue. Even when he was younger, he'd make the same mistake whenever it was him making his milk after reading books for school for hours on end. He'd either drift off for the quickest second while heating the liquid, or he'd be too paranoid that the milk was too hot already that he'd turn off the stove too quickly. He never got it right. Only when his mother was around to guide him was he able to reach the right temperature. Only when she was around to tell him that, "The technique, Joonmyunnie, is to wait for the first boil. Watch it closely, count a minute from there, then turn the flame down."

"Won't it get cold quickly, umma?" he'd ask, ever the non-believer. His mother would laugh, ruffle his hair, and press a soft kiss to his forehead. And that would always make him take a step back, look at his mother for a few good seconds before turning his attention to the liquid. "Oh, there you go! That's the–"

"Not yet. _Patience,_ " she'd tell him. Then she'd snake an arm around his shoulder to pull him close and hum a song under her breath, against the press of her lips to Joonmyun's temples. And Joonmyun would always feel the slow-forming smile on his mother's lips where she had it pressed against his skin, like she knew that the only way to make Joonmyun listen, _really listen,_ was by calming his mind down through a song. "Okay. _Now_ it's boiling."

"I'll count down to the next minute, then?" he'd asked his mother that time. She nodded, laughed, then pressed another kiss to his cheek, this time wet and sloppy. He grimaced in mock disgust, but the very next second he was hugging her close. "Ah, umma!"

Joonmyun laughs to himself. He might as well have been alone since his mother died, just two years after she watched him graduate from med school. Meeting Baekhyun was like getting a second chance at life, yes, but he's never felt the same sense of security with anyone else. His mother was a pillar of strength, of certainty, of all things that he has memorized like the back of his hand; Baekhyun is all about adventures and risks and taking a big leap of faith.

Baekhyun was a breath of fresh air turned grossly intoxicating. And Joonmyun has never quite gotten back on his feet ever since.

He makes some space on the desk for his mug and sets it down on the table. Picks up one of the bundles, as well, and leans back in his seat as he goes through the introduction line by line. He's read this at least five times already, but he can't be too sure – there might be something there that he's missed before, something that he overlooked while trying to fight the allure of sleep.

He looks over his shoulder, gaze shifting to the clock on the wall. Ten in the evening, it reads. Still too early to call it a night, but too late for a man his age to just get started on whatever work he has to do.

And it's been twelve hours since he talked to bells boy, twelve long hours since he'd opened the small door and let bells boy place the bottles of milk on the other side of the door. He can still feel the burn on his wrist, though, where bells boy had gripped him tight. It's almost as if someone had tied a thick rope on it and tugged so hard that his hand could've fallen off if he hadn’t been lucky. Part of him feels... weird, like something has been snatched from him without any promise of getting it back, but part of him feels oddly light. Almost as if something has been lifted off his chest, as if that _thing_ lodged in his throat has dropped to the pit of his stomach once and for all, ready to be flushed out of his system. It feels a bit strange to have been able to talk to a human being other than Sehun after a long period of silence, but for the most part it feels comforting, knowing that he still has the necessary skills to deal with people.

He snorts at himself. When he was still practicing his profession on the regular, he spent most of his days attending to all sorts of patients will all sorts of attitude problems – the angry, the ones in despair, the skeptics and the non-believers. Those who put doctors on a pedestal and considered them gods because of their ability to save lives. Nothing a bit of science and technology can't solve, really, but there's no denying that he used to be the de facto doctor for ‘the difficult patients’. And there’s also no denying that being perceived by people as a savior makes Joonmyun feel a lot like a hero. Like he's too rock and roll for danger that he can just brush it off and say, "Ah, a gun shot to the chest? I can take out the bullet; easy as pie."

And then there's the Kim Joonmyun who has had very little practice in talking with people in real life, has had laughable practice conversing with them only through a tap on the door or a rap on the wall and not through words in the past few years. The Kim Joonmyun who now struggles with reaching out to the other side to touch instead of to push away when it used to come to him so easily, like breathing. "Progress is progress," he tells himself, examining the fingers on his left hand one by one. Bells boy touched the sides of his hands, then traced a few steps of his fingers on his skin, from the base of his hand to the mole he has on the underside of his arm. It doesn't burn as much as before, but there's still a dull ache prickling his skin enough to take away pain from the scald in his tongue.

He drops his hand to his thigh and shakes his head. Human touch feels electric sometimes. He's felt that even with Sehun. So bells boy isn't different, he muses as he thumbs through the pages with feigned interest. Maybe he should get to doing one of those dick doodles Baekhyun used to draw on his readings for sheer amusement. Or maybe he should start focusing on what he should be doing _right now_ – give his full attention to the work at hand and nothing else – and not on what he could have done earlier, twelve hours ago, with just six short inches between him and bells boy.

He scoffs and shakes his head. Refocuses his vision on the material until the words jump out at him.

Bells boy is just an ordinary guy.

☂

An ordinary guy who turns out to be persistent, Joonmyun soon finds out when he wakes up a bit too late _and_ to the sound of bells. The sun is already up high, too hot when it prickles his skin and makes him shiver. The vast white of the sheets bunching up around his ankles is beginning to be more of an eyesore with the way light bounces off of it instead of a white flag luring him back into slumber. And that damned ringing just won't stop. It takes a few second for thing to click, and then his body's giving a tiny jerk in recognition. His first reaction is to bolt from his bed, feel around for his glasses, slip them on; his second, to panic a little because he slept in _until ten in the morning? What the fuck–_

He furrows his eyebrows as he turns to check the wall clock. It's just eight in the morning, though. He's just right on time. So he pushes himself off his bed, then peeks through the window of his room to check if someone's really at the door and he's not just imagining things.

He pries his eyes wide open as soon as he sees a familiar tuft of hair. Curls his fingers in a tight fist around the curtains, as well, and reminds himself yet again to _please clip your nails, Joonmyun._ Later at two in the afternoon, once he's done washing the dishes and has a good hour or so to waste or maybe dedicate to more reading. But that's for later – right now, it's only eight in the morning, and if bells boy had any respect for Joonmyun's schedule then maybe he wouldn't even attempt to ring those stupid bells at ass o' clock in the morning.

Three more rings, then the knocking on the door softens. From where Joonmyun is, he sees bells boy's shoulders fall, a gradual drop as he lets out a long exhale and juts out his bottom lip.

"Why do you have a thing for annoying people?" Joonmyun asks himself as he wraps the ribbons of his robe around his waist and makes his way down the stairs. He quickens his pace, nonetheless, tries to keep up with his feet and the voices at the back of his mind screaming at him. Later, he can blame lack of coffee for his serious lack of judgment, but right now he cares about only one thing – making the ringing stop and getting some peace and–

Joonmyun wraps his fingers on the knob and gives it a slick twist, then he's pulling it close to his chest until he sees sunlight filter through the narrow gap. He yanks a bit too hard, almost hitting himself, but that's alright. The ringing has finally stopped and he's a bit more awake now, with the light from the sun burning a patch of his skin as opens the door even more. "What do you want this time?"

Bells boy hums. He chuckles, too, and cranes his neck, peeking from the tiny gap where Joonmyun's poking his head out just a little. And that's when it hits Joonmyun – the heat from the sun hitting his face in all its glory, the cool spring winds outside blowing against his face. His nose going too red as he adjusts to the push and pull of warm and cold. The short distance between them that isn't even more than six inches, thinning even more with each passing second that bells boy leans closer.

The loud thumping in his chest that isn't from all those, but because of the silly grin on bells boy's lips as he says, "And good morning to you, too. Did you like the cookies from yesterday?"

"That's it?" Joonmyun asks. Means to say, you came to my house _two hours ahead of schedule_ and woke me up in the most _disruptive way possible_ just to ask if the cookies were good? Bells boy is weird, silly, _hilarious._ He's kidding, isn't he? But the smile on his lips remains, keeps his mouth stretched open into the most blinding smile he's seen in years. And that's saying a lot, because Sehun has always been generous with smiles. "You mean to say to you came here at eight in the morning just to–"

"To deliver the new batch of milk, actually. Though the cookie question kind of comes with it," bells boy replies, curt and honest. He scratches his nape, then scores a long red line along the slope of his neck with a nail. It doesn't look as nasty as the bruises Joonmyun leaves on his own skin when he's fumbling with his fingers and leaving tiny crescents on his palm whenever he clenches his fists, but it does breathe some color into bells boy. Makes him widen his eyes and blink a few times like he's trying to shake off the lethargy still wrapped around _his_ body so he can do his work before anything else. "And sorry about the bells. I didn't know any other way to get your attention," bells boy continues after a while.

"You could have knocked on the door." Waited for your turn, stuck to the schedule, part of Joonmyun wants to say, but he knows better than to be rude to new people in his life. His mother wouldn't be happy if she ever saw him like this, brushing people off at eight in the morning, and ruining his entire day in the process. "Or left and then went back at 10 a.m.. Isn't that your–" Joonmyun yawns, then presses the back of his hand to his mouth as soon as he sees bells boy's eyebrows lift. "–schedule or something?"

The corners of bells boy's lips curl up, tugs as his cheeks and crawls all the way to the corners of his eyes to make them crinkle. There it is again, the gentle dimples on his cheeks and that light laughter bubbling on the jut of his mouth. Wow, Joonmyun thinks – he's never seen anyone respond to the smallest of actions, gestures, _cues_ as fast as bells boy does. In all the years he's spent practicing his profession, not once has he met a person who can shift from one expression to another in a blink of an eye, like he's been programmed to change emotions faster than he can change his underwear.

A blink of an eye and _wow,_ there's another one – a subtle squint, like bells boy has seen something peculiar just over Joonmyun's shoulder. So Joonmyun slides closer to the wall, wedges himself there so that bells boy won't be able to see anything beyond the thinning distance between them.

"You... really don't sell souls, do you?" bells boy asks, laughing. He hums for a while and _number three,_ Joonmyun notes – a sudden violent tug on one corner of bells boy's lips, a twist of the mouth, a sharp look in his eyes that betrays the soft laughter spilling from his lips. Too fast, too quick. Joonmyun just _can't_ keep up. "Because I wouldn't know how to feel if you... recycled the glass bottles and stuffed the souls there–"

"No," Joonmyun retorts, sharp and fast. He furrows his eyebrows. Takes a step back to match the one step bells boy takes forward. There are still six inches between them, and bells boy has just shifted to the first expression he was wearing earlier.

Shit, Joonmyun thinks. He needs to learn more about that, how to train the body and the brain to develop a stimulus so hard to catch.

Shit, Joonmyun groans at the back of his mind, gulping hard this time when he feels his stomach turn. He's in some serious trouble.

"Cool," bells boy says, then locks his arms behind his back to stretch. "And I don't really follow a schedule. It's just that a trip by foot from the city center to your place always takes the same amount of time."

"City center?" Joonmyun asks. When bells boy cocks an eyebrow at him, he shifts his gaze to bells boy's wrist watch. Ten minutes past the hour. He has a few more minutes to spare. "Isn't that... far from here?"

The smile on bells boy's lips blooms into a grin, big and bright but soft at the corners. "Not too far. Depends on how fast you walk," he replies. He leans against the frame of the door, then says, "You don't go out much?"

Joonmyun snorts. He hasn't gone out the front door, hasn't left the premises of his property in years. He hasn't even touched the knobs before Sehun left for his vacation; Sehun always carried around with him his keys, after all. He hasn't even thought of walking past the door. And it isn't normal. So bells boy doesn't need to know that, and Joonmyun doesn't really have to answer that question because _who is this guy,_ anyway? He's just one of those people passing by, one of those people beyond this barrier living their life the way they _want_ to. He doesn't owe bells boy _anything._

Joonmyun curls in his toes and gulps hard. Part of him wants to hear bells boy's voice more, though, wants to study the way bells boy shifts from one expression to another with relative ease. And really, he doesn't have anything better to do. He finished the journals before going to bed last night; the next most important thing on his list is to get a life.

He licks his lips, then, worries his bottom lip before saying, "Not much. I... don't really see the need to."

Bells boy laughs a little. He meets Joonmyun's gaze, tilting his head as he does so, and squints. It's as if he's looking for something – a mole, a scar, an imperfection? Answers scrawled on Joonmyun's skin, or hidden behind his eyes? But why? Joonmyun's hollow on the inside. He's just a shell. There's nothing to see past the exterior bells boy is seeing right now – Joonmyun's small frame, his hair almost reaching his collarbones, the cool smidgen of drool on a corner of his mouth. Still, bells boy keeps at it, holds Joonmyun's gaze but maintains the safe distance between them like he understands what it means.

Joonmyun laughs to himself, at himself. He isn't even sure why he's staying away.

"It's nice out there, though. Wonju-si hasn't... changed much, despite all the technology that's been developed to make people's lives easier," bells boy whispers. He hums again, the same tune he'd sung under his breath a few days ago. It's the same tune that's been plaguing Joonmyun during his quietest moments, in his bath, just before goes it bed. The same sound that makes him shiver all over now, when bells boy lets out a long, loud exhale. "It almost feels like it's the same old city, but better."

Joonmyun snorts. "More mountains all around?" he asks, more as a joke than anything else, but bells boy furrows his eyebrows in question as soon as the last syllable spills from his lips. Only three seconds after does it sink in, and then _bam,_ there it is again, the flash of expression on bells boy's features, the quick shift, the recalibration. It's as if he has an entire catalogue of expressions filed at the back of his mind, ready to be triggered by key words and events.

Humans don't work that way, Joonmyun tells himself. But then some people in this world aren't completely human. He should know. Years ago, he met a guy whose body was half translucent and half _going there._ And five years ago, he lost the same man to the desire to find a cure to that disease.

"I don't think you're new here, but just in case–" Bells boy coughs a little, leaning back as he cups his hand over his mouth. He wipes the sullied hand on the back of his pants, then crouches to reach for something from the ground. Joonmyun can't see much, not from where he is, but soon bells boy resurfaces with a bottle of milk and a pack of those stupid cookies again. "If you need someone to take you around, I'm your guy. I used to do it for my friends who spoke the language worse than I do."

"Oh, you're..." Joonmyun tilts his head a little, shifting his gaze between the milk bottle and the dimple on bells boy's left cheek. It looks like a tiny crescent against his pale skin. Joonmyun sort of... wants to reach out to see the shadow really does look like a small moon, but– _No,_ he tells himself, pushes down the many words at the back of his teeth, waiting for a window of opportunity, a moment of weakness. Instead, he digs his hands into his pants as he continues, "You're not Korean?"

Bells boy laughs a little. "Take the milk bottle and I'll tell you more."

"This isn't a game."

"I know," bells boy says. "But you look like you could use some fun in your life."

Joonmyun takes a deep breath. If he reaches out now to wrap his hands around the nozzle of the bottle, he'll get his answers. He'll spend more time than necessary out here, wedged between the door and the wall. But he'll get his answers. But then he'll be off-tangent, as well, by an hour and a half, maybe even two, or until bells boy decides he's already bored with Joonmyun and it's time to sell more of his milk and cookies. If he doesn't, bells boy will just try to find a way to make him give in, try to talk his head off again. Bells boy wins, and Joonmyun can only ever lose.

He should have never opened the door, in the first place.

"I could use some food in my life," Joonmyun answers. He tugs the bottle out of bells boy's grasp then says, dropping his gaze to the mouth of the bottle, "The cookies were good, by the way. You're... right – they go well with the milk."

"But of course," bells boy says with a confidence Joonmyun has only ever seen in himself during risky operations. It makes him shiver, makes his knees go weak for a moment. Makes him a bit jealous, as well. The last time he'd looked himself in the mirror before an operation was four years ago. That was also the last time he went up to Seoul, the last time he'd been out of his house for more than five minutes and away from it for an entire day.

He'd go home three days after with a kid in tow. And the kid would live in the house with him ever since.

He spends another thirty minutes slumped against the wall, listening to bells boy explain the whole 'being a tour guide to his friends' stint he went through way, way back. His sides ache a little and the pulse in his temples aches from the lack of caffeine in his system and his stomach keeps lurching and it's _too late_ to be having breakfast now, but a part of him doesn't mind – the milk is good, tastes fresh, makes him feel warm all over, and the cookies are delicious. And the lilts in bells boy's voice make him feel at ease with where he is, trapped between the inside and the out, toeing the line between two worlds that might not be so different, after all.

☂

"Zhang Yixing," bells boy tells him one time, during one of their early morning talks. This time, Joonmyun's sitting on the floor, back pressed to the wall, and bells boy is sitting on the topmost step of the stairs. There's a small bowl of cookies between them, then two glasses of milk on the floor. Sehun will probably kill him if he ever found out about this. "My name's Yixing. I can't believe you called me 'bells boy' in your mind for the longest time."

"That's the best thing about you: the bells," Joonmyun reasons out, then shifts a little in his seat. It's been almost a week since Joonmyun opened the door and talked to Yixing face-to-face, a week since he's had to tweak his schedule a little to accommodate a new early morning commitment. And in the span of seven days, he's learned more about Wonju-si than tried to recall the many twists and turns in his mansion. Processing information isn't a chore for Joonmyun, not when he has to do it on a daily basis and even analyze those bits and pieces of data, but Yixing has a way of explaining things that he makes a history lesson sound so much like a casual conversation between friends. He sounds like a teacher slowly unfolding an entire chapter's worth of lessons in the form of storytelling, talking about the legend behind the Guryongsa Temple where nine dragons gathered in a pond during the Silla dynasty and built the temple that they're seeing now atop the pond. He sounds like an instructor talking about how the nine dragons can be like the seven dwarves and one of Korea's most precious temples assuming the 'role' of the love story between Snow White and her prince. And maybe Yixing _is_ a teacher. He has that sort of tone to his voice, soft, gentle, honeyed, that he makes it easy for Joonmyun to stick around long enough to listen to an entire story about weird dragons and big straw mats like they're the most interesting thing in the world.

"For the longest time, I thought people remembered me by the milk," Yixing says, letting out a loud exhale. When he turns to look at Joonmyun, he's frowning. "Should I change careers now? Start selling bells instead of milk?"

Joonmyun laughs. Yixing has crumbs on the corners of his lips, then a small dot of chocolate on his cheek. Some of the crumbs have caught on his chin, as well, and– Joonmyun laughs even more. It's one of the first things he's picked up from the ninety minutes they spent together, talking at the front door – if there's one thing that Yixing is absolutely not good at, it's not being a messy eater.

"It's worth considering," Joonmyun answers. He drinks the milk, the corners of his mouth tugging up in stimulus as soon as the the flavor of the milk tickles his taste buds. "Or you can try being everyone's alarm clock. I think it's a pretty lucrative job."

Yixing shakes his head. "You'll pay me to do that?"

Do I have to, Joonmyun wants to ask. He has an alarm in his room, set to six in the morning now instead of his usual eight in the morning. His body clock has somehow adjusted to that, his system booting just five minutes before he hears the first note of the shrill sound. And Sehun's absence has made it more difficult to sleep in and a bit easier to push himself to start his day early. There's no one to prepare breakfast for him, nobody else in the mansion to make sure that Joonmyun's on his feet at a certain time so he can stick to the schedule he has for the day.

But then Yixing just had to ruin everything. Now, Joonmyun doesn't have coffee from eight 'til nine anymore, and he doesn't have his usual toast, egg, and jam combo in that hour-long breakfast time, either. Instead, he drinks milk from eight to ten in the morning, pops these mini cookies in his mouth as he listens to Yixing talk about all sorts of things. Yesterday's topic was waking up late, thirty minutes after his alarm, and almost knocking over the bottles in his cart even before he could leave his house. Yixing looked so distraught yesterday, eyes wide open but his attention elsewhere as he pushed the cart closer to the doorstep of Joonmyun's place, parking it just before he hit the flowers. "Sorry. Didn't mean to– I just–"

"Woke up on the wrong side of the bed?" Joonmyun asked then. Yixing let out a long exhale and rested his forehead against the wall. Murmured something unintelligible soon after that Joonmyun sort of understood as a 'yes'. Joonmyun swung the door fully open and leaned against the frame of the door, then gave the space beside him a few pats. He was drumming his fingers like he was so nervous Yixing would decline his invitation to come a bit closer. He _wasn't._ "Do you want... coffee or anything? Water? Toast? Eggs? Kimchi?"

Yixing peeked at him through the slits of his bangs and offered him the softest, weakest smile. Three loud thumps – Joonmyun felt that in his chest, strong and wild. It was daunting. "Just stay," Yixing said after a while, then leaned his back against the wall. Soon, he was inching closer to Joonmyun but not quite, still keeping a good six inches between them. It was comfortable enough a distance that Joonmyun could feel the warmth of Yixing’s body even without them touching. A companionable distance, not the prickling kind of warmth. "I just have to... restart or something. Boot up. That kind of thing."

"You're not a computer," Joonmyun replied, laughing a little. Yixing rolled his eyes, then fixed his gaze on Joonmyun again like Joonmyun was the only thing keeping him awake. "Hang on, I'll get you some water. _Don't move._ "

Today, it's Yixing running into this cute little girl in the city, giving her free cookies because, "She was so small, so tiny! I wanted to give her milk but I only carry about ten extras; the rest are regular orders and–"

"Regular _orders?_ " Joonmyun repeats, the last syllable rolling off his tongue more slowly that the rest. It sounds so rough, forced, like he isn't accustomed to speaking his own language. It feels a bit weird. He tilts his head to the side, then continues, "So you go around, servicing, what, thirty customers in the area?" He pauses for a moment to take a sip of the milk, but something catches in his throat and scores a sharp line there, leaving the taste of blood and metal in his mouth. He clears his throat. The fucking sensation is still there. "Visiting them in their houses everyday? Isn't that tiring?"

Yixing hums. Furrows his eyebrows, as well, like he's never given it much thought or given it _any thought at all._ Maybe it's one of those things that you program into your system, a routine that you find yourself falling into and sustaining for days, weeks, months. The next thing you know, you're walking down the streets of Wonju-si like a robot, pushing your cart filled with milk bottles forward without any idea why you're even taking time to hand out milk to people like it's Christmas. Joonmyun gets that – both the comfort a routine brings and the hollow feeling it leaves in a cavity in your chest.

"Tiring, yes, because it involves a lot of walking around," Yixing answers after a while. He reaches up his nape, massages the junction where the neck and the head meet, and tilts his back to press against the pressure of his thumbs all the more. Yixing's... saying something about the heat of the sun and the spring breeze and his greatest fear being the glass bottles breaking before they get to their owners, but Joonmyun can't make out the right words just yet. They all sound fuzzy with the spring winds howling in the background. On a normal day, he'd tell himself to focus, focus on just one thing, _stop getting distracted so easily, Joonmyun,_ but it's almost impossible. It's a _challenge_ , because Yixing is licking a stripe along his own lips and the corners of his mouth are curling up at the corners. And Joonmyun can't look away. He can't tear his gaze now, not when he's already guiding his gaze south, from Yixing's eyes to the gentle swell of his wet and parted lips, down to the column of his neck where beads of sweat trail down his skin.

Joonmyun takes a deep, shaky breath. When he looks up, Yixing's looking at him with the most peculiar gaze, a question written on the slope of Yixing's neck when Yixing's tilts his head and reasons with him. "I mean, if there's something to look forward to every single time then it doesn't really _feel_ like torture," Yixing explains, pausing to clear his throat again. He hasn't broken eye contact with Joonmyun just yet, though. He still hasn't backed down. "Besides, every single day is different. I learn new things about you everyday. There's always something to look forward to."

There are only two things anyone should ever know about Joonmyun, though – one, that he loves his secrets and prefers to keep them that way; and two, that _that truth,_ in itself, is a secret only two other people know. Joonmyun wonders if he should let Yixing in on the secret, but then where’s the fun in that?

"Well, sorry to disappoint you but..." Joonmyun's voice trails off into a low hum, faint laughter. He shrugs and slumps against the wall even more. Yixing follows him with his gaze, heavy and focused, but the smile on his lips remains. If anything, it has become even softer, more relaxed. Like all the tension in Yixing's body has lifted and decided to plummet to Joonmyun shoulders, pin him down on the floor until Joonmyun gives into fatigue. "This is it. This is me. Just... this. No fancy tricks, nothing in between." He takes a deep breath then lets out a long and loud sigh. "This is as good as it gets."

Yixing cocks an eyebrow at him and laughs. "Including the white shirt? That's all you have to wear?"

Joonmyun narrows his eyes at Yixing, earning him a chuckle. He can feel something inside him bubbling, a slow and simmering heat at the pit of his stomach coming to a gradual boil. "There's nothing wrong with the white shirt."

"I know. White shirts are nice. But I'm just saying–" Yixing pauses for a while, gulping hard, swallowing around whatever it was lodged in his throat. "–maybe this is just what you want others to see, and what _you_ want to see when you look in the mirror," he continues.

Yixing shifts in his position and moves forward, three inches closer to where Joonmyun is. For a moment, Joonmyun thinks of asking him what he's up to, but Yixing gives him no time to think and gives Joonmyun a light nudge in his side. It's barely a brush of skin on skin, hardly even contact, but Joonmyun feels the jolt of electricity even through the way their clothes stick to each other. And that's when it kicks in – the heat crawling from the point of contact up to his arm, wrapping around his neck in a wicked, vicious grip, the tightness in his throat. The heavy thumping in his chest that drowns out the sound of the howling winds and Yixing's soft laughter. There's nothing funny about this., Joonmyun wants to stay, _stop laughing_ but he can't even string his words together. All the syllables threatening to spill from his lips earlier are now suspended in his system, lodged in his throat, making it harder for him to breathe.

He hasn't had human contact without preamble in the past five years. And if this is screwing with his senses, making his stomach lurch even more and sending cues to different parts of his body, then what more when–

"–Not that I'm saying you have to lay down all your cards right now since we've _just met,_ but you've got to have a little faith in yourself," Yixing continues, then, voice lilting as it drops to a whisper. Another nudge of the arm and this time Joonmyun thaws out, chokes on his own spit, and takes a deep, violent breath. “You’re not as… boring as you think you are."

I wouldn't want to study myself, a voice at the back of his mind says. There's nothing interesting there anymore, unless you're the type of person who fancies emptiness and a vast sea of black. There's nothing in him that will pique people's curiosity and make them wonder why Joonmyun is the way he is now. And there are too many scars on his body, too many marks where parts of himself used to be that Baekhyun took with him the moment he flat lined.

He looks to his right. Yixing is still smiling at him, like he isn't willing to give up just yet. So he waves the white flag and shrugs, mumbles to himself but just loud enough for Yixing to hear, "I guess you'll just have to see for yourself, then."

"And until then," Yixing begins, lips parting to reveal a bright, wicked grin, "You're stuck with me."

Joonmyun presses down one palm to the floor, leaning back against the wall even more. There's nothing wrong – Yixing's still a good three inches away and they're not touching, not in any part of their body, but he can feel his cheeks getting his and the pulse in his temples beat even faster. The beating in his palms catches up, like it's reminding him that _hey,_ you haven't been this close with anyone since the day you took Sehun in. Are you _sure_ of what you're doing? Is this something you _really_ want? And he has no good answer to that. It's a question so simple that he doesn't even have to think of an explanation behind his answer, but _it's not as easy as you think,_ he tells one of the voices in his head. This is him keeping the door open for a stranger to freely walk into his life, giving someone like Yixing a chance to mess up with his schedule and the rest of his days, as well.

Three beats. Yixing's drumming his fingers on the floor again, dancing his fingers closer to where Joonmyun is. So Joonmyun clasps his hands on his thighs, digs his nails into his skin until he can feel the tension in his throat ease and the shaking of his knees arrive at a calm. 

"Don't get me wrong: I just like you for your milk," Joonmyun retorts when he feels the tension in his throat ease. He cracks his neck and pulls his shoulders back. His recovery time's faster today – six, seven seconds, compared to the full sixty it took the other day when Yixing stared at him for a good ten seconds only to point out that, _You'd look even cuter with dimples, right–_ And then he leaned closer, index finger hovering Joonmyun's cheek but his other hand rested on the jut of Joonmyun's hip bone. _–here._ "And the cookies. I like the cookies more than the milk, actually."

Yixing hovers for a moment, like a slow, simmering heat at the pit of Joonmyun's stomach threatening to explode, then pulls away with an easy smile. "That's it. I'm going to switch careers now. I'll do my rounds today and tell everyone that I'm retiring from selling milk _forever–_ "

The way Yixing chops up his syllables when he gets too excited while he talks is cute, Joonmyun notes. He'll never say that out loud, though. It's one of those secrets he'll keep mum about forever, maybe tell only Sehun and make Sehun _swear_ to never tell anyone else.

Another secret, Joonmyun muses as he watches Yixing break the last cookie into two and lick off the chocolate that has clung to his skin: Yixing has nice, slender fingers, the type that would fit perfectly between his own.

He wraps his fingers around his glass of milk, instead, and takes a long swig. The lurching sensation is still there.

It's the same thing day in and day out, except Yixing always has something new to share with him – that one time on his first year in Korea when he almost missed his bus to Seoul, then that time when he _did_ finally miss it and ended up having to wait in the closest Dunkin' Donuts for the first trip of the bus the following day. That time he almost beat up a guy in the streets for stealing his cab after a _really tiring day at work_ and how said guy ended up being his best friend. How they went on their separate ways after pursuing different fields of medicine but still kept in touch.

"He's coming up here from Pyeongtaek in summer just in time for the Hanji Festival. I mean the end of summer. Or the start of autumn. _Whatever,_ it should be exciting," Yixing mentions one time, just before he slips his sombrero back on and fixes the bell he wears like a pendant on his chest. He looks up at Joonmyun, eyes bright even with the shadows the sombrero is casting on his features. Half of his body is washed out by the harsh sunlight; the other half, illuminated by it. It's unfair. "You... mentioned wanting to see the capital, right? It would be the perfect time to go."

Joonmyun takes a deep breath. Spring hasn't even ended yet and Yixing's already thinking of summer. That's three, four months from now. Four months is a long time. Anything that can't be contained in just a few minutes or maybe even the hour and a half that they spend talking everyday at Joonmyun's front door feels much too long for him now, even with the days feeling they're just flying by. He feels his insides turn. "What's so special about a paper exhibit, though?" Joonmyun asks after a while, scratching his nape. "I mean, you just have paper lanterns there that rain can easily demolish and–"

"And you've got to see it for yourself to know what makes it _so special,_ " Yixing retorts, winking as he ends. "Give it a chance. Besides, a lot of hard work has gone into making those. Just imagine refining the paper a hundred times just to achieve a nice finish and arrive at a beautiful lantern–"

Paper processed a hundred times. _Baekji,_ Joonmyun almost whispers to himself. _Baekji festival was how they used to call it._ Baekhyun used to say he's as durable as the paper used for festival lanterns. Joonmyun insisted that the paper was 'stubborn', _just like someone I know._ Baekhyun groaned in response and jabbed him playfully on the arm, then pinned him to the closest flat surface he could find. Said he should stop being cute, that he should stop worrying his bottom lip all the time because he was going to end up scarring himself. But there was no threat in his words, nothing but the honeyed tone in his voice as Joonmyun pushed down all the words Baekhyun was about to say with a gentle coax of the tongue, a soft nip on his bottom lip, a squeeze of Baekhyun's thigh.

"You do that a lot," Yixing whispers now, nudging him in the ankle with his foot. "The zoning out thing." His eyes are squinted a little, and he's tilting his head to the side. His lips are quirked up. Standard Yixing look, Joonmyun says at the back of his head, except there's something missing – the sun that used set him aglow, the strange allure of sweat crawling down the column of his neck? The laughter that always bubbled on his lips? Joonmyun can't tell yet. Three weeks in and he's positive he still doesn't know Yixing as well as he wants to. There are still parts of Yixing he hasn't dissected yet, facets of his personality that are just too difficult to crack without leaning too lose until all Joonmyun can feel is the burn of the slide of their arms against each other.

_Again,_ Joonmyun tells himself. He's spacing out again, hiding behind the beat up shield that he'd used in the past to repel Baekhyun. He should know better than to try to use it one more time. He's not the same old juvenile he once was; he's older now, more experienced, toughened up by circumstance. The last thing he should be doing is letting emotions wear down his walls of defense that were never thick, to begin with.

"I just need my coffee," Joonmyun answers, then tries to wear his best smile. Yixing snorts in response. "I'm serious, I've been drinking mostly milk these days because of you–"

Yixing lifts his eyebrows not even a second after the words leave Joonmyun's lips. Now _there_ it is, that peculiar sparkle in his eyes that always, always makes Joonmyun curl in his toes. Muscle memory kicks in – his stomach lurches, the pads of his fingers grow cold, the thumping in his chest quickens. It's almost like he has a knee-jerk reaction for the magic in Yixing's eyes alone. It sounds stupid, even only in his head. And it sounds even more stupid when the words knock at the back of his teeth and he ends up making this unintelligible gurgle at the back of his throat.

"You like it, though, right?" Yixing asks. "The milk, I mean."

"I suppose," Joonmyun murmurs. He scratches the tip of his nose. "I told you, I'm lactose-intolerant."

Yixing stares at him, just stares at him, lips pressed together in this tiny curve that makes him look like he's seconds away from breaking out into song. He'd probably sound good, Joonmyun muses, but he pushes that thought to the very back of his mind, saves it for another day. It's close to half past ten in the morning and Yixing still has milk bottles to deliver to his customers. Joonmyun has new research material to analyze and create a write up for before the end of the week. They both have more important things to do. But Yixing just stays there, not uttering a single word through his lips but instead letting his body do the talking – swaying from side to side, head bobbing to a beat only he can hear, the image of the surprise and surrender scrawled all over Joonmyun's features so clear in Yixing's eyes.

☂

With the last few packs of chocolate cookies comes the last few dregs of spring lifting from the air. There's none of the cool winds Joonmyun has come to grow fond of, none of the cool Monday mornings where the sun is already up but Joonmyun can still wear his fuzzy jacket while harvesting carrots from his field. Instead, summer slaps Joonmyun in the face, relentless and unforgiving, when he steps out into his garden, shines down on him with a heat so prickling it feels like he's done something wrong.

Forecast says it will rain tonight. It always rains in summer, and it always leaves the most uncomfortable feeling ever. "That's why you should schedule all your vacations during summer," Baekhyun had said one time, rolling on the bed so that he was lying on his stomach. His eyelids were fluttering closed every few seconds. It was already nine in the morning. Joonmyun wanted to reach out and just close them, wanted to tell him, go back to bed, you don't have to see me off. I'll be back in a few hours, anyway. Wanted to whisper, stop looking at me like you don't want me to leave. _I have to go to work._ "Because it's humid as fuck outside and all you'll want to do is to sleep in–"

Baekhyun flailed his arms about, then jutted out his bottom lip in Joonmyun's direction. Joonmyun shook his head, help up one hand, tried to look away. But he's never been good at denying himself this. He's never been good at denying Baekhyun anything, either. "I'm not falling for that. I have to go to work. It's not– I'll come home in four hours," he reasoned, but Baekhyun kept shaking his head, pushed himself off the bed, sauntered to where Joonmyun was to rest his hands on Joonmyun's hip.

"But I'm your work. I'm your biggest project," Baekhyun countered. He tilted his head a little and placed a soft kiss to the underside of Joonmyun's jaw. "Work on me a little longer."

Joonmyun laughed. "We won't get anywhere with this project," he replied.

Baekhyun shrugged then sucked a mark there, laving his tongue over the sensitive skin once he was done. "At least you're still doing work."

Joonmyun shuts the door behind him now in a loud thud and shivers when sunlight hits him, cloaks him in light. He's fully awake now. He's been up for the past three hours now. He's had toast and eggs and some kimchi. And he's already had two cups of coffee. There's no reason to be dreaming the same thing he'd dreamt of last night when he's already thrown the covers off of himself just to convince himself that _none of it was real._

He laughs to himself. Time can only heal so many wounds, and Baekhyun has left way too many scars on his chest when he left. Each and every single one of them, Joonmyun can map out and put a label to – the one on the lower part of his torso is from when Baekhyun crumbled to the ground, held onto the first thing he could grab for balance and support. The one on his thigh is from when Baekhyun had teased him a bit too much before taking him in whole. The one on his chest, left and center, is from those many nights Baekhyun's had spent burying his face in Joonmyun chest, counting down to the day of his final operation.

And then the one on Joonmyun's palm, the freshest, deepest cut, is from when he'd decided that if there was one person he'd give up his life for, it was Baekhyun. It can't be anyone else.

The wind blows against his face, tousles his hair just a little, as if fluffing it. The air around him smells like damp earth and rain and life. He should harvest his crops before the storm hits. The last thing he wants is to lose something he's poured a bit of his heart and soul into. Second to going hungry for days, of course; Yixing reminded him a week ago to make summer kimchi in preparation for the new season.

_Yixing._ He snorts. Yixing hadn't dropped by earlier with milk and cookies. Maybe he woke up way too late again and he's taking too long to get to Joonmyun's place. Or maybe he's doing a reverse of his route because he wastes so much time just chatting with Joonmyun in the morning when he can be doing more rounds and selling more milk. Not that it matters – Joonmyun's just after the fresh milk and the warm cookies that go with it.

He looks down at the cabbages lined in front of him and lets out a long sigh. It's like five years ago again, except worse because he's not supposed to be making the same stupid mistakes. Just when he thought he's already settled on a new and better routine, just as soon as he's carved out a cozy little place in his heart for someone to come crawling into, life decides to give him a nasty kick in the ass and laugh at him silly for being so hopeful.

"Fuck life, really," he mumbles as he crouches low, inching closer to the cabbages. They look much thicker and bigger than before, better than the first two batches he's planted in the past. Yixing's right – applying fertilizer to the soil just before the heads of the cabbages start forming will help the cabbages grow bigger and healthier.

He can still remember that quick reminder Yixing had given a few weeks ago, just before Yixing walked down the stairs to rejoin his milk cart. "Don't think that I won't find out whether you followed my advice or not, because I'll know," Yixing said then, an eyebrow cocked at Joonmyun. His right hand was saying something else, though, when he reached out to give Joonmyun's arm a light squeeze. "You'll make me taste that kimchi of yours that you're so proud of and I'll know from there if you really did follow my instructions–"

Two heartbeats, then Joonmyun feels something cold and wet on his skin. It's still bright out here with the sun up high, but already these tiny raindrops greet him, landing on his face in a soft pitter-patter. So he sinks right back to his knees, pulling out the vegetables as quickly but as carefully as possible. He almost misses the last row of cabbages and tomatoes when the rain starts pouring even heavier but he manages to harvest everything in time for him to dodge the brunt force of the storm.

He looks outside one last time, through the window by the front door this time, and lets out a long sigh. His stomach turns. He curls in his toes, his fingers, feels like curling in on himself. Maybe Yixing's just too sick to head out. Or maybe he had the foresight to not report to work today, knowing that it might rain anytime soon. Joonmyun won't be surprised: Yixing's deceptively perceptive for a man who looks like cares about nothing but delivering milk bottles to people and handing out free cookies to little girls who keep telling him he's 'the most handsome and kindest oppa they've ever seen'.

Or maybe _you're_ just thinking too much and too hard about this, a voice at the back of his mind says. So he turns on his heel and heads to the kitchen, rolling up his sleeves as he goes on his way. There's nothing else to do, after all, with the gloomy weather hovering Joonmyun and breathing down his neck. There's nothing better to do.

☂

Ten in the evening and some news on power interruptions in the area after, Joonmyun hears three knocks on his door.

He doesn't catch it at first. The volume of the television is up too high and he's still caught deep in thought about the new assignment he'd received from the institution. It's about stimulus training for survivors of car accidents, people subject to different forms and levels of trauma developed through these unfortunate circumstances. _Exactly your kind of thing. ;),_ Minseok said in his email. Then Jongdae replied to the thread, saying, _Better if you talk to the patients we have onsite, hyung. Primary resource is essential in studies, after all~ :)_ What kind of scholar even uses a tilde at the end of formal correspondence, he wanted to say then after reading the message, but the better half of his mind had convinced him to just sit back and watch Minseok take charge, steer the fun in his direction. It _has_ been a while, after all, since they all talked to each other online. Granted, they're talking about work and traumatized patients and surviving accidents, but this is still a form of communication. And Joonmyun's not about to deny himself the pleasure of watching Minseok trying to maintain formal email writing language when Jongdae's already using emoticons left and right.

_You should visit sometime. Lunch at the caf for old time's sake?_ Minseok had said in a separate email. Joonmyun's fingers hovered the keyboard before typing, quick and thoughtless, _I'll see what I can do._

_Same place, right? I can come over to pick you up or something,_ Minseok replied after a while.

_It's alright, hyung. I can get a cab to the institute or something. I'm a big boy now :D_

_That's the least of my concerns,_ Minseok countered. Two paragraph breaks, then, _I heard from Sehun you haven't been out of your house since Baekhyun left. How will I know if you'll even show up?_

Joonmyun took a deep breath and drummed his fingers on his thigh. He had no good answers for Minseok's question, but then it wasn't even a question. It was a statement – Minseok was sure Joonmyun wasn't ever going to show up and the closest thing to a reunion they'll have was one done online, in an email thread. A video chat was just stretching it.

_Sorry, hyung, I'm pretty busy right now. I'll catch up with you later, okay? :)_. he typed as fast as he could. At the sound of the bell ringing, he bolted from his seat and placed his laptop down on the couch. _I'll make it up to you sometime. Really sorry._

Joonmyun swore he heard the sound of an email coming in just before he turned around to leave. Still, he pressed on and didn't look back, didn't even look over his shoulder to check the display of his laptop if a message had indeed come in.

A familiar chime of a bell, and Joonmyun's heart skips a beat, snaps him back to reality. He quickens his pace and wraps his fingers around the knob, then swings the door open. 

Nothing but an expanse of land greets him, though, when he pushes the door forward and lets the cool winds of the storm inside. The rain's pouring down even harder now, if that's even possible, and there are budding puddles nearby. Shallow grooves on the damp ground ahead, as well. They look like fresh tracks, but there's no one in sight. He cranes his neck a little, then, squints so he can see better, but to no avail – there's no sign of whoever had knocked on his door or rung that bell that he knows belongs to just one person. "Whatever," he mumbles, then, fingers wrapped around the handles to shut the door back in place, when he hears bright and loud ringing from nearby. So he takes another step forward, past the door and closer to the rain, and looks at either side of him.

There are two cats taking shelter under a big leaf to his left. To his right, a weird-looking box kind of thing that looks like it has seen better days. Then a lump of brown just beside it that's– "Wow, it's... moving," he mutters under his breath. He inches closer, then, squints even harder so he can make out the details of the weird lump nearby. And that's when he catches sight of the gold chain hanging from his neck, the bell pendant resting on the man's chest, the familiar warm gaze and even warmer smile that greets him when he finally steps out of the shade and into the rain, the water pelting down on his fast and hard. "Yixing?"

"Oh hey, hi," Yixing whispers, giving him a weak wave. He brushes his bangs away from his face but the strands just keep sticking to his wet skin, keep poking his eyes and making him seethe. And Joonmyun sort of wants to brush Yixing's hair off his face. He wants to reach out, cup Yixing's face in his hands so the water can meander between his fingers, so he can see Yixing's face better, but– "Sorry, I just– I couldn't leave my cart because I still have some milk here and the cats sounded like they were hungry so I thought I'd feed them but then the rain just poured even harder and–"

"Shut up," Joonmyun whispers, almost breathless with how the rain just keeps beating down on him. He takes a step forward, then another, and _another,_ inching even closer to where Yixing is and grabbing him by the wrist. "Go inside. I'll take your cart to the backyard. Grab the cats, as well."

Yixing blinks up at him, then drops his gaze to where Joonmyun's holding him tight before guiding his eyes back up. It takes a while to sink in, slower than that of the rain dance but faster than the thundering pulse on the base of Joonmyun's throat – the way Yixing tenses and relaxes all too quickly in his touch, the way Yixing sucks in his bottom lip like he's keeping himself from saying things he'll regret, the jolt of electricity coursing through Joonmyun's system right now, screwing with his senses and making his sense of logic go haywire. Should he let go? Should he tighten his grip and just yank Yixing by the wrist? Should he just walk away and shut the door behind himself even before Yixing can come sauntering in? He doesn't know. There are too many voices in his mind right now, all of them screaming at him, telling him what he should do and not what he shouldn't.

" _Go,_ " Joonmyun repeats, drawling the sound this time like he can cut through the thick sheet of rain with his words. Yixing only furrows his eyebrows in response, though, doesn't move until Joonmyun slips his hand south to give Yixing's hand a quick squeeze. "I still have milk from two days ago. You can feed that to the cats. Now _go,_ before you catch a cold."

Yixing parts his lips to speak, licking them open this time, but nothing comes out. Instead, he just nods, steals one last glance over his shoulder before gathering the cats in his arms and slipping in the narrow gap of the door. Joonmyun takes that as his cue, then, pushes the cart in the direction of the garden and parks the cart there, by the empty beds and tools. It looks so misplaced in the scenario, throws him a bit off-kilter because it looks so _foreign_ to him, but it's becoming difficult to focus on anything but the traitorous cold crawling up his legs and numbing his knees. Even more when he hears Yixing's voice in the distance, the sound of rain falling to the ground muffling all the words he's saying but the two syllables of Joonmyun's name that Yixing calls out louder than the rest.

Joonmyun takes a deep breath and turns on his heel. He'll deal with this some other time, maybe tomorrow when the sun is shining again. It's already too late in the evening to be staying out and walking in the rain. He shouldn't have even gotten out of his house in the first place.

_You haven't been out of your house since Baekhyun left–_ The words ring in his ears, soaring about the noise of the rain. He shakes his head, shrugs that thought off his shoulders, but his stomach still turns, like a reminder of the things he shouldn't even be paying attention to – the way Yixing's voice curls around Joonmyun's name like he's rehearsed how to say it properly at least a hundred times, the way Yixing's features brighten up when he sees Joonmyun get back from where he'd taken the cart. The way Yixing is holding the front door open with one hand and extending the other in Joonmyun's direction as if to invite him inside, _join me here on the other side. We have big pillows and soft blankets and warm hugs so come closer, now, come on–_

"Can't believe you live alone in this mansion," Yixing says when Joonmyun inches closer. He guides his gaze to where Joonmyun's reaching out, meeting Joonmyun's hand halfway through before sliding it around Joonmyun's waist. "It's so big in here. It's easy to get lost."

There are a lot of ways that Joonmyun can answer – he can laugh, he can snort. He can shrug and laugh a little, or maybe even roll his eyes. Or he can walk away and let Yixing and the cats shiver in the cold. Or he can stop acting like he doesn't care. Part of him wants to say, I can't believe I just let you in, can't believe I entrusted my house with you for two, three minutes when I went to take your cart elsewhere. But it's ten in the evening and he's too cold from walking in the rain for too long. It won't hurt to give a straight answer, one off the top of his head. It won't hurt to just let things happen without trying to control them first. It won’t hurt to just surrender, give into the allure of Yixing’s soft and warm smile. "And I can't believe I let you bring the cats inside my house."

"Oh, are you allergic?" Yixing scratches his nape. "I'll just stay with them outside. Though I might have to borrow a towel or two–"

Joonmyun laughs a little and shakes his head. Jongdae's right about what he said before, that Joonmyun's a shelter for lost causes. That he loves taking in the troubled and the broken because fixing people makes him feel good about himself, makes him feel capable. Helps him see his value and worth in the world without losing sight of his target.

"I'll get you a towel. Just stay here," Joonmyun answers, then threads his fingers through the cat's fur. "And I'm a dog person, for the most part, but my friends say I deal pretty well with animals."

"Not surprised," Yixing comments, voice lilting as he hums. "You seem like the type who'd be good at taking care of others. Or the type who'd _love_ taking care–" He shakes his head, laughing, and he waves his hands in front of him like he's trying to erase the words he's already let loose in the air, trying to take them all back. "I'm sorry, I just get into this... mode where I start studying people based on my encounters with them and–"

"Why would you do that?" Joonmyun asks, just barely above a whisper. His throat feels tight, like there are claws scoring lines along the walls and he's choking down blood instead of the words fighting their way up his throat. His stomach, still lurching in several different directions. But his chest feels a bit lighter, like sputtering those words without preamble has loosened the knot inside him and has made him breathe easier. More freely, even with the weight of Yixing's stare pinning him in place and keeping from looking elsewhere. Forcing him to look straight into Yixing's eyes so he can see _himself._ "I mean–"

"I know what you're going to say: that there's nothing else to see. 'This is it, this is me.'" Yixing's voice trails off into laughter, low and choked, then into a whisper. He takes a deep breath, chest heaving, then looks up at Joonmyun again, meeting his gaze this time. His lips are trembling and he looks as if he might pass out from fatigue and the cold and _whatever else_ Joonmyun can't think of at the moment, but he's still smiling. His cheeks are tense, shaking, the softest shade of pink. And Joonmyun can feel the thumping in his chest quicken, can feel his pulse pick up pace at the back of his knees, his elbows, his ears, the base of his throat. There are so many words he can be saying right now, countering Yixing with while Yixing is weak from the storm, but he can't feel his lips, his throat, his limbs. He can't even tell if he's still breathing. All he's certain of is that Yixing's moving closer and that Yixing's reaching out with ice cold fingers, reaching out for _him._ "I don't believe any of that, Joonmyun."

Joonmyun looks away, dropping his gaze to his feet, but Yixing traces the curve of his cheek with his fingers and tilts his chin up. He almost laughs. Forty years old and he still doesn't know how to say no or how to walk the other way. How to push people away without wanting to wrap his arms around them the next second. "This is silly," he whispers, _breathes out_ when Yixing guides him to face forward, to look at him and nothing, nobody else. "I should be giving you a towel, not arguing with you about what you think about me–"

"And we should be feeding the cats," Yixing adds, then slides his hand further up until he's cupping Joonmyun's cheek. And you shouldn't be holding me like this, Joonmyun wants to counter, but it's becoming impossible to think at all with the violent push and pull of cold and warmth on his skin. He can feel the spark of electricity there, right there where Yixing is touching him, and a traitorous cold slipping between his fingers where Yixing isn't.

Push him away, a voice at the back of his mind says. Walk away while it's still early. Shut the doors. _Lock them, now._ But Yixing's voice wraps around his throat like a gentle breeze breathing warmth and life into him, lifting the tension from his shoulders, loosening the knot in his chest.

"–because they've been meowing for the past five minutes. If I were a hungry cat, I'd... I'd do the same, I guess," Yixing finishes. His fingers tremble against Joonmyun's skin, and that's what jolts Joonmyun back to this moment, to this reality – Yixing's freezing cold and his teeth are chattering. He needs a change of clothes and food. Joonmyun needs to take a step back. "Do you... have a bowl where they can drink the milk from or–"

"I'll take care of it," Joonmyun whispers. He clears his throat, pounds on his chest with one fist, then reaches for his cheek with the other. "Just... stay there. I'll get you a towel. Or... a jacket. New clothes." He runs his thumb along his cheek and gulps hard when he presses down on a particularly sore spot. Yixing pinched him there earlier, somewhere between talking about cats and his pulse drumming beats on Joonmyun's skin. "I'll be back."

"I'll be here," Yixing replies. He sucks on his bottom lip, then adds, "With the cats."

Joonmyun laughs a little, breathing out all the air he'd contained in his chest earlier. Then he counts to three, counts the seconds until he feels the words crawl back up his throat for a clumsy enunciation. "Yeah. Don't let them run around the house."

Yixing chuckles. It sends a sizzle of heat down Joonmyun's abdomen. It makes him shiver.

They end up bathing the cats in the common bathroom, both of them with their sleeves rolled up and hair tied away from their faces. Yixing isn't shivering anymore, dry and warm in a fresh change of clothes. And he smells exactly like Joonmyun – from the scent of vanilla and mint and books in his hair to the fabric conditioner sticking to the white longsleeved shirt of Joonmyun's that he's wearing. He's wearing Joonmyun's clothes like he's always meant to slip them on during rainy days and cold nights, like he's always meant to drag stray cats along with him whenever he has to take shelter in Joonmyun's house. Like he's somehow orchestrated this whole thing, like they're good friends, like they've known each other for years when they've only known each other for weeks. It feels strange how easy it is for Yixing to slip into the house slippers Joonmyun had given him earlier and walk around in them like he's already mapped out Joonmyun's house even if he's only been here for two hours. It's almost frightening.

But then Yixing is warm, and it's cold outside. The storm hasn't subsided just yet and they've already finished the milk Yixing had heated earlier on Joonmyun's stove. And Yixing's patting the space beside him, telling Joonmyun to come closer, _come on, I won't bite._ "Are you sure you don't have your aircon set to the coldest possible temperature? Because I bet it's much colder here than it is outside."

Joonmyun blinks a few times, worries his bottom lip until he feels Yixing's warmth seep through the pads of his fingers when Yixing reaches out to tap a beat on his thigh. He shivers. It isn't cold here, not by a long mile, but he can feel the tips of Yixing's fingers lose their warmth with each passing second. It can't be cold, not with the way Yixing is looking at him with such soft eyes and a gentle curl at the corners of his lips. It shouldn't be cold when Yixing laughs, curt and loud, then shakes his head before inching closer to where Joonmyun is. It isn't cold at all. So Joonmyun surprises Yixing, meets him halfway, rests his warm palm atop Yixing's own and curls his fingers around Yixing's hand.

There's a loud, thundering pulse in the link of their fingers. A faint gasp in the air, as well. It can't be his.

"Better?" he asks after a while, risking a glance through the slits of his bangs. Yixing nods and lets out a soft hum in response. Or maybe he's saying something, just that Joonmyun can't hear it above the noise in his chest, the thumping behind his ears, the howling winds just beyond the window. The voices at the back of his mind saying, you shouldn't have let him in, Joonmyun. You should've pushed him away while you had a chance. _You could have saved yourself._ So he closes his eyes and listens for Yixing's heartbeat in the press of their bodies. He inches closer when he hears a hint of the sound he's been looking for, locks in on it and sets the thumping in his chest to the heavy beating of Yixing's pulse against his skin. And he doesn't pull away when Yixing leans in, resting his head on Joonmyun's shoulder and breathing out against the underside of his jaw.

 

 

In the morning, he wakes up to Yixing's faint mewls muffled against his chest. It's still raining outside. It's only five in the morning. So he closes his eyes again and allows himself to breathe out, breathe easy, and threads his fingers through Yixing's hair, counting down the seconds until he has to pull away.


	2. Chapter 2

Joonmyun moves up a few items in his daily schedule to accommodate new tasks. He gets up at five in the morning now instead of eight so he can water the vegetables at the back and make sure that the cabbages don't dry up. Waters the flowers in front, as well, and adds a couple of new varieties that he knows will add more color to the ensemble. At six in the morning, he starts warming up the stove so he can cook sunny side up and toss in a couple of slices of bed, or maybe even make seaweed soup for himself if he's in the mood for it. If not, then there's always some kim in one of the drawers, then there's kimchi in the fridge. Just a few days ago, he reprogrammed the rice cooker so that it could serve as a rice preservation machine. No more wasted food. Then he'd added a feature, as well, where he can just easily slot some yellow radish, sweet eggs, and some meat for hassle-free kimbap making. It's _brilliant._

"Also a nice gadget to have for someone who's too lazy to make kimbap," Yixing told him one time, finishing with a frown. He arranged the strips of egg, kimchi, and yellow radish in a neat column, then rolled it up with the rice. Grinned in triumph, as well, as he held up the roll right in front of Joonmyun. "I mean, cooking anything requires a lot of love for the food to taste great. So why make the whole thing so... robotic?"

"Gadgets have feelings, too, you know," Joonmyun reasoned, then shifted his gaze to his perfect kimbap. It looked weird without the uneven strips peeking from the edges. He almost didn't want to eat it, just wanted to stare at it forever and maybe take pictures of it. But then he knew he wasn't the best of photographers; he didn't even know what made the 'rule of thirds' a standard in photography. "Don't let them hear you."

Yixing rolled his eyes in response and set the roll back down on the chopping board, then started cutting it up in neat, one-centimeter-thick slices. "I'm sorry for hurting your poor gadget's feelings," Yixing said, then, voice dropping to a whisper, and shut his eyes tight when he turned to face Joonmyun again. His bottom lip was jutted out in the cutest little pout and if Joonmyun hadn't been holding a knife in his hands, if his fingers hadn't been sullied with food, then Lord knew what he could've already done. "And I'm sorry if my kimbap will be better than yours."

"No need to be sorry because it _won't–_ "

"Well, let's just say I've made people fall in love with me through my cooking," Yixing retorted, humming. He wiggled his eyebrow, chuckled before clearing his throat. Then he swayed his head from side to side, the corners of his mouth pulling up even more like he just _knew_ he'd already won. Joonmyun curled in his toes – maybe Yixing _had_ won even before the battle started. Maybe Joonmyun should’ve tried to put up a better fight. There wasn’t even supposed to be a battle at all. "So _please,_ just– Don't take the loss too hard. I'm just really good at this."

Make me, a voice at the back of Joonmyun's mind said. The tiny voice inside him was screaming, don't you even _dare._

Joonmyun takes a deep breath now, inhaling the thick scent of coffee through his nostrils. It's almost eight in the morning. If things go according to plan then Yixing will arrive in a few minutes with fresh milk and these new cookies he's been trying to perfect the past three days. The first two batches weren't too bad – it's just that the cookies were a bit too sweet for Joonmyun's liking. "And if my cookies don't pass the litmus test then I shouldn't be releasing them to the public for everyone to eat."

"So I'm your guinea pig, is that it?" Joonmyun teased that time. Yixing just half smiled, half frowned at him, his mouth twisted in this peculiar little grin that made Joonmyun's insides turn. Joonmyun pressed his lips together in a thin, thin line in an attempt to keep everything inside, push back the words threatening to spill from his lips, to regain control over his senses even if he knew full well that Yixing would be able to find a way to pull his strings in the most pleasant way, anyway. "I actually we thought something going on, you know. Something... special."

Yixing cocked an eyebrow at him, lips parted as if he was hoping to say something. He didn't. Instead, he hummed and sunk his teeth in one of the cookies he made, nodding in approval as the flavor filled his senses.

Joonmyun shakes his head this time and blinks a few times. Stop going back there. _Don't look back,_ he keeps telling himself, but Yixing just makes it so easy to look back without having to worry about the taking a blow to the chest, a cut to his palm. Yixing makes reminiscing sort of... nice, rid of the initial bitterness Joonmyun once had for everything that linked his past with the present.

Three rings of the bell, and Joonmyun snaps up straight. He locks his arms behind his back and pushes himself away from the table. The coffee's too hot to drink, anyway; he's done with scalding himself again and again.

Yixing arrives a little before eight in the morning this time, armed with a bottle of milk, a new batch of cookies, and a lone cupcake that he sets down between their plates, skewed a bit more to Joonmyun's side than his own. "You aren't planning to sell cupcakes, are you?" Joonmyun asks, making his way to the coffeemaker as soon as Yixing finishes emptying the pack of cookies into a shallow bowl. He catches the sound of Yixing's light laughter, the faintest lilt of the voice. It makes him shiver a little, but it's a good shiver. The type that jostles him awake and pumps up his senses for what's to come. "At this rate, people might actually forget that you sell mainly milk and just those sweet treats on the side."

Yixing hums. Joonmyun looks over his shoulder, then, setting the coffee pot down on the counter before turning to walk over to where Yixing is. "Not too bothered. Told you, I think I really need a change in career," Yixing answers after a while, pausing only to address Joonmyun with a smile. He takes a sip of the coffee, lips falling open into a tiny 'o' after the first taste of the drink. "And you might want to consider making coffee for a living. I don't think I've ever tasted brewed coffee _this good._ "

Joonmyun snorts, kicks Yixing under the table only hard enough to earn a gasp from latter. If Sehun was here then he'd call Joonmyun out on his old-school flirting techniques, but then they aren't even supposed to be flirting. They're just coaxing each other to consider new career options, maybe break free from something they've long been doing. Change is almost always good, after all, especially when you're feeling a bit stuck.

Joonmyun's been stuck in the past for the past half decade. If there's someone who needs a breath of fresh air more than anyone else, it's him.

"I've got good beans to thank," Joonmyun singsongs, swaying from side to side and he saunters over to his seat. These are still the beans that he got two Christmases ago, from the package that Jongdae and Minseok sent over because they 'couldn't seem to get a hold of Joonmyun, for some weird reason.' _Come up to visit us? We miss you, hyung :(_

I miss freedom and being happy, Joonmyun wanted to say then. It sounded so selfish, though, so instead he sent two separate emails to Minseok and Jongdae, both containing different but equally short messages. To Minseok, he said, _Thanks for the beans, hyung,_ To Jongdae, _Someday. For now, thanks for understanding. Don't eat the snow!_

Joonmyun curls his fingers into loose fists. The slightest mention of going back to his roots, of traveling for two long hours from Wonju-si to the country capital makes him feel weird, queasy. Almost like he's being forced to relive the past decade knowing that Baekhyun will be taken away from him, anyway. It's ridiculous. But then Jongdae just wants to a quick chat, maybe over coffee or one of Minseok's favorite expensive wine. They don't have to bring up those five years Joonmyun spent dancing around Baekhyun. All they have to do is to talk about work, the present, how they are _now_ and not how they've moved on from the past because if there's one thing Joonmyun hates more than anything else but keeps doing, anyway, it's lying to others; ultimately, to himself.

Maybe he _should_ try to reconnect sometime, drive up north if he can still remember the route from this hidden place to the capital so he can deliver the hardcopy of the papers he's working on instead of leaving their fate up to the courier and weather. Summer's not the best time to go sending out letters via airmail, after all. It's like stepping into a manhole, knowing that _it's there._ And he isn't that stupid. Not anymore.

"Lu Han used to fuck up the coffee even if we had good beans," Yixing mentions. He leans back in his seat, throwing his head back a little and closing his eyes for the briefest of moments before resurfacing with a smile. He looks like sunshine at seven in the morning after a rainy night. Like Joonmyun's next big mistake and his new downfall. Joonmyun laughs a little. "I'm not kidding! And to think we used to get grounds before... So you'd think he'd have very little chance to screw it up, right? But _no._ He poured too little water and insisted it was a 'ristretto brew'."

Joonmyun furrows his eyebrows. "Ristretto doesn't work that way."

"Yeah. He soon discovered," Yixing groans. He lifts the cup again and draws it closer to his lips, taking a long whiff of the scent before taking a sip. "So you're good at this. If you put up a coffee shop in the middle of nowhere, I'd drive out to visit everyday."

"Just to stop by?" Joonmyun teases. Under the table, Yixing reaches for him with his foot, then nudges his ankle with the tips of his toes. " _Hey,_ no playing at the dining table!"

Yixing doesn't let on. Instead, he hikes his foot up, scoring a line of heat along Joonmyun's calf before pressing his big toe to the back of Joonmyun's knee. Joonmyun stills. He holds his breath, keeps it all inside his chest where he can feel the thumping the strongest. And sucks in his bottom lip. He tries not to shake, tries not to shiver, but every touch from Yixing stuns him, electrifies him. A vicious cold wraps around his neck, caresses his nape, and _shit_ – it feels a bit like that night when Yixing reached out to cup his cheek, rubbing lazy circles on his skin with the heat of his thumb. It feels a lot like that time, those many times when Yixing danced his fingers over to where Joonmyun was, just close enough that Joonmyun could feel the heat of Yixing's skin with the two, three centimeters between them.

And then Yixing would inch closer, gaze fixed elsewhere, and the tips of their fingers would touch. The first brush of skin and skin would make Joonmyun's breath hitch; the second, make him too aware of the thinning distance between them, the weight of Yixing's stare, the message written in the way Yixing tilts his head and furrows his eyebrows like there were so many things that he could be saying at the moment but just couldn't string together. Like he hadn't been telling Joonmyun about the weirdest, most random of things whenever he came over to visit that he felt _weird_ blurting out whatever he wanted to say.

Yixing yanks him back to reality and pins him in place – their ankles locked under the table and their gazes fixed on nothing, nobody else even with the steam from the coffee diffusing Yixing's bright smile a little.

Yixing leaves closer to eleven in the morning than ten. He's been pushing back the end of their breakfast more and more these days, but, "I think I'll need to stick with our schedule for the next week," Yixing mentions before going down the stairs. "Got a couple of studies to work on. Weird, science-y, paranormal stuff." Joonmyun parts his lips, poised to speak, to _ask,_ but he never gets to push the words past the gates of his teeth and apprehension when Yixing peeks at him through the slits of his bangs, gaze soft, almost tender. Maybe this is Yixing hitting that 'low' he claims he runs into after drinking coffee. Or maybe Yixing was lying earlier; the coffee's actually bad and it's causing him some stomach problems. Joonmyun doesn't know. And he hates not knowing. Still, he presses his lips together and doesn't shut the door until he sees Yixing disappear around the corner, until the sound of bells thins into silence and the steady thumping in Joonmyun chest.

Joonmyun takes a deep, deep breath, and breathes out. The less he knows about Yixing, the easier it is to dissociate him with everything. And the less he knows about the turmoil inside him right now, the easier it is to just ignore it and will it to fade.

☀

June is the type of month Joonmyun loves to hate; mid-June, even more. He got into an accident before, sometime around those days, back when he was twelve, lost his father in the process and almost lost his mother to the bitter aftershock of the crash. His brother had to drop out from school then to help his mother with the expenses, catch a part-time job somewhere in the capital and try to get the family back on stable ground. A few years after that, Joonmyun caught a cold on one of his big examination days and almost lost a lot of marks that he'd need to get a nice head start for the college entrance exams. And then there are the heavy rains that make the atmosphere much more humid than they should be. It's one of those months when he just wants to lie supine on his bed and count down the minutes until the cold of the night seeps in.

And then Baekhyun would come climbing onto the same bed, scaling his misbehaving hands up Joonmyun's thighs, pinning Joonmyun in place as he straddles the latter and looks down at him with the fondest gaze. He'd pepper Joonmyun's chest with kisses, drawing patterns on Joonmyun's skin with them. Then he'd coax Joonmyun to turn around, lie flat on his stomach, and rub his thumbs up and down along the tense muscles in Joonmyun's back until Joonmyun moaned in appreciation, bucked his hips back, grinded against Baekhyun's tenting erection in his pants.

"I've already showered," Joonmyun would groan, more to tease than to complain

"We can always shower together," was Baekhyun's helpful suggestion.

Joonmyun would laugh and turn around, hook one leg around Baekhyun and pull him down until their bodies were caught in a tight, sticky fit – chest to chest, heart to heart. He'd look at Baekhyun in the eye, roll his hips a little until Baekhyun was _groaning_ for real and clawing at his skin, whispering, "C'mon– Joonmyun, _please,_ just–" And Joonmyun would try to put up a fight, try to tease Baekhyun some more, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to focus on anything at all when Baekhyun was licking the shell of his ear and whispering all the tiny, choked whimpers, demanding all of his attention with his hot lips pressed to Joonmyun's skin but apologizing for being _so damn impatient_ with the way his fingers trembled against Joonmyun's skin–

Joonmyun jolts up, his breathing heavy and laboured when he surfaces. He looks around him, looks at the wall clock nearby, then lets out a long exhale. It's only five in the afternoon. There's a dull ache in his cheek that he's pretty sure isn't from getting punched. And his stomach is lurching in several different directions. It almost feels like waking up hungover except he hasn't had anything mildly alcoholic in a decade. Almost feels like he's twenty-five again, flirting with nurses and fellow interns and one of the cute residents in the same pub that he and his friends frequent after draining shifts. He laughs. He lifts his hand to his cheek, then, rubbing along the surface until he feels a nasty depression there. He must have fallen asleep while working again, must have somehow submitted to the whims of his silly dreams and decided to stay there far longer than he should have.

He yawns, stretching his arms overhead, and shivers when he hears his bones crack. He should stay up tonight to get things done, finish these analyses so he can start working on the summarized findings for the journals he's working on. They aren't due for another week, but it's always good to finish things early. That way, he can check and double-check everything before sending off those journals and hoping that they can somehow help the doctors save lives, effect change, change the world. The sort of thing only Joonmyun would make his goal whenever he works on research materials for the institute.

He laughs to himself. Minseok used to roll his eyes at him for that all the time. Jongdae wouldn't say anything, but he'd shift his gaze elsewhere and press the back of his palm to his lips in an effort to not laugh. And Yura would be the only one who had enough guts to say, "On a scale of one to ten, Joonmyun, _on a scale of one to ten,_ how absurd is that idea?"

"Eleven?" was Joonmyun's standard answer. And Yura would always respond with light laughter, a gentle squeeze of the arm, a light ruffle of Joonmyun's hair with the subtlest of touches, light as a feather.

He runs his fingers through his hair now and gives the tuft a light fluff. Maybe he should go for a shower before getting right back to working on the analyses. That will definitely help him stay awake until his next coffee stop at ten in the evening. Or he can power through the last few paragraphs of this particular analysis then start fresh with a new study after taking a bath. The water almost always helps him think, makes it easier for him to retreat to the very back of his mind and not worry about the other voices in his head screaming at him. Makes him feel like he _can_ step outside the house again and walk farther than the five-meter radius of his house, try to get a feel of how things are on the other side. That night when he walked past the barrier of his door for the first time in a decade to help Yixing with the cart and the cats, he had rain on his side.

You can't go depending on things, _people_ all the time, he tells himself. It's difficult, not having things within your control and leaving results up to fate and chance. So he picks up his pen, pushes back his bangs, takes a deep breath. He only needs five, ten minutes to power through the last few paragraphs of this analysis. He needs to stop asking himself so many questions and start noting down answers he's always had stored at the back of his mind.

He needs to stop thinking and start _doing._

Ten in the evening finds him with his hair sticking to the sides of his face, eyebrows in a tight knot as he scores lines with a highlighter along his readings. Halfway done with the last analysis and his brain feels like it might explode anytime, remain empty for too long until he has to pick up his remaining brain cells and just... stuff 'em all inside. It becomes monotonous and draining after a while, picking up readings and studying them then finding things to shoot down, improve on, maybe even change completely. Sometimes Joonmyun wonders if he's actually studying new material or just looking for the first flaw he can find, blowing the thing up so he can submit something to the scholars in the institute.

Sometimes, he wonders if he's looking at things the way he shouldn't. If he should start looking outside the window instead of _just through it._

Three knocks on the door and he stops short in his highlighting. He presses down the tip on the paper, soaking the area in a bright yellow, and quickly pulls away when he sees what he's just done. Ten in the evening is a pretty obscene time for anyone to drop by. Even Sehun knows better than to return from somewhere at such a late hour and expect Joonmyun to answer the door with a big smile. But then the last time Joonmyun _did_ swing the door open at close to eleven in the evening was smack in the middle of a storm. The same night he stepped out of his safe zone and just let Yixing come sauntering into his house, raindrops trailing him as he stepped on the doormat, soaked to the bone.

He snaps the cap of the highlighter in place at the second burst of knocks. There's the distant sound of bells, as well, just loud enough to slip between the noise of knuckles rapping against wood. He takes a deep breath, then, gets back on his feet and clenches and unclenches his fists. Laughs a bit, as well, because who even recognizes people by the sound of knocking and bells ringing? Only people who don't have better things to do latch onto those things, cues as tiny and insignificant as those, and use them as an anchor so they can find their way home. Only people who haven't heard other sounds in the past five, six years such as Joonmyun.

It's not raining outside, though. There's no water around to help clear his mind a little, to help him make better decisions. He shakes his head and gulps hard – forty years of existence is supposed to have taught him well about life by now. He has no excuses for fucking things up again.

"Hey," comes Yixing's greeting, filtering through the narrow gap between the door and the wall. Joonmyun swings the door further open, revealing Yixing in clothes Joonmyun hasn't seen yet – a loose white shirt, denim shorts, something akin to a sweater resting on his arm while he carries a bunch of books and a notebook in his other arm. Or is that a laptop? Joonmyun can't tell yet. His eyesight gets progressively shittier as the day goes by and ten in the evening requires more than just his eyeglasses to help him see clearly. So he pulls the door open all the way and coaxes Yixing to come inside with a gentle cock of the head, a tight-lipped smile.

"Wasn't–" Yixing coughs and sniffles, then clears his throat. His eyes are sullen. It's almost as if he can't open them anymore but he's trying really, really hard to. He was looking much better this morning, when he dropped by really quickly and spent no more than thirty minutes chatting with Joonmyun at the front door, but even then he looked as if he'd be better off tucked in bed than pushing his cart from one place to another. It wasn't like one of their usual breakfast conversations where they'd eat at a glacial pace and just talk about anything and everything under the sun 90% of the time; his breathing was laboured and he was wearing one of those sad smiles of his, one that neither drew cute little dimples on his cheeks nor reached the corners of his eyes to make them crinkle. And he kept dropping his eyes to Joonmyun's lips instead of holding Joonmyun's focused gaze. He rarely did that. Yixing liked looking straight into people's eyes and watching them like he was so interested in the way they breathed. "I wasn't supposed to head here but it's just too _noisy_ everywhere else and this is the only place where I can get some peace–"

Makes sense, Joonmyun muses – the mansion's meters away from the next house. It's kilometers away from the city center. He's miles away from the noise of the world. So when Yixing breathes out, shoulders slumping forward, Joonmyun reaches out to rest his hand on the small of Yixing's back. Sort of a reminder that hey, if you need someone to help you get to the living room, if you need any help _at all,_ just let me know.

Joonmyun feels a weird, prickling heat bloom in his palm, the back of his knees, his cheeks. His knuckles. It feels a lot like a spark of electricity so powerful that he feels the hair at his nape stand, feels his heart stop beating for a moment, then come back thumping in full force the next. The burn _stings._ But Yixing makes it impossible to pull away when he looks to his side and _finally_ meets Joonmyun's gaze, when he reaches out with one hand and tucks Joonmyun's hair, too long to not be tied back anymore, behind Joonmyun's ear. And Yixing keeps his hand there, knuckles pressed to Joonmyun's check for a few good seconds, before he drops his hand to his side. Joonmyun tries to chase after the more comforting heat but manages to hold back, biting down hard on his tongue before he can even say something he hasn't thought through at least twice, before he can even do anything he doesn't know if he won't regret.

"Work?" Joonmyun asks after a while, voice barely above a whisper. Yixing takes a deep, deep breath, shoulders lifting as he sucks in air into his system and tries to refuel his senses. Joonmyun sets his breathing to that, slow and spaced out, like he's trying to calm himself from– _From what?_ There are no storms in the area, no chaos around him. The only turmoil brewing right now is the one bottled inside his chest. "I'll– I'll make some tea, then. Or do you want coffee?"

"Milk should be fine," Yixing says, offering a small smile in response. Then he lifts his hand another time, sneaking a light pinch on Joonmyun's cheek before pulling away. "And I finally perfected the new cookies, by the way. Pretty sure you'll love them."

Joonmyun's breath hitches. "And the cupcakes?"

"I let them go." Yixing sets his things down on the table beside the couch in the living room, arranging the books in a neat stack. "They weren't working out and I found a way to... reinvent the cookies but still retain the chewy consistency so!" He runs his hands along the sides until he's satisfied, books of varying sizes shuffling into a nice, straight line without toppling over the very next second. Then he looks over his shoulder, peering through the slits of his bangs again like looking straight at Joonmyun will blind him. _Can't be possible;_ Joonmyun's just a flickering light in the dark. "Get ready to be blown away. I'll make you fall in love with the cookies."

"And take all my money, basically. I knew it, this friendship's just a sales pitch," Joonmyun grumbles, more to tease than anything else. He keeps his lips pressed together into a thin line, nonetheless, keeps a straight face as he turns on his heel to go on his merry way. He waves his hand over his shoulder, then, walking to the rhythm of Yixing's bright laughter, but soon Yixing's reaching out, pinching him in his side, making him warm all over. There it is again, the same jolt of electricity that Joonmyun felt earlier, only now it's more powerful, _consuming,_ with the way Yixing's pulling him close and there's nothing, not even a sliver of breathing space keeping them apart. Back to chest, cheek to cheek, with Yixing's warm arms around his waist and keeping his knees from giving away.

His body gives a tiny jerk. He risks a glance over his shoulder, whispers, "Sorry, did I–" when he turns to look to his side, but all that greets him is Yixing's hovering heat, the sight of his wet lips so close and just within reach pushing back all the words already poised to roll off his tongue. "If I ever jerked back too much, I swear I didn't mean it–"

"Relax," Yixing says, breathing out in the narrow gap between their bodies. His body jerks, as well, shakes a little. Joonmyun can hear it, that peculiar crackling sound between them, almost as if it's trying to push them apart, but Yixing doesn't let on. Instead, he tilts his head, resting his head against Joonmyun's own. "Just... relax. Don't move. _Stay._ "

Joonmyun takes a deep, deep breath. Part of him wants to say more, wants to ask, why are you doing this? _What_ are you doing? Why do I care at all? It's just a hug, a gesture people seek out when they're tired and weary and just want to feel that they're not alone. Friends do this, envelop their friends in the warmth of their embrace, but something about the way Yixing presses his lips to underside of Joonmyun's jaw feels... different. Like he wants to say _something_ but can't find the words for it yet, so instead he's letting his limbs and his lips do the talking but without sound. Just the brush of skin on skin to spill all the secrets Yixing is hiding beneath that practiced smile, the bright eyes, his soft touch.

Part of Joonmyun just wants to surrender, to turn the tide and cup Yixing's face in his hands until he can feel nothing else but the heat of Yixing's focused gaze on him, until he can feel nothing but the thrumming of his pulse against Yixing's skin. But it _doesn't make sense._ They're supposed to be just two people who've dedicated two hours of their morning everyday to just talking to each other, watching each other speak, listening to each other breathe. They're not supposed to be sharing one breath. And Joonmyun shouldn't be thinking of how it would feel if it was his mouth Yixing had his lips pressed to, if they were face to face and they were whispering with their bodies all the things they couldn't be telling each other – I like butterfly kisses on the nape, warm hands on my back. I think your pretty lips would fit perfectly in mine so _why aren't we kissing? Why are we holding back at all?_

"I'll listen, if you want to talk," Joonmyun whispers. He shuts his eyes when he feels Yixing pull away for the briefest of moments only to resurface by breathing out against Joonmyun's skin, by pressing his lips, wet and warm, where Joonmyun's pulse beats the strongest. "I know how it feels when there's no one to listen–"

"What if I just need a hug and some silence?" Yixing asks, chuckling. Joonmyun stiffens in fit of their bodies, but soon Yixing's pinching him again in his side and burying his face in the crook of Joonmyun's neck, instead. "And warm milk?"

Joonmyun leans back against Yixing's chest, submitting to the touch. This, at least, feels familiar – Yixing's laughter, unguarded, uninhibited, ringing in his ears, Yixing drumming staccato beats on his waist like he's still trying to get the timing down months into this strange friendship of theirs. Three good inches between them, keeping them at a safe distance from each other but not quite pushing them apart.

☀

Joonmyun finishes his journals just before midnight. His side of the dining table looks much messier than that of Yixing's side, but at least he can file his papers in a folder now and forget, for the briefest of moments, that they even exist. This is one of the best feelings ever, Joonmyun muses – crossing off a big task from your to-do list and feeling the weight of work being lifted from your shoulders. Walking away from work knowing that you've given it your all and that you have no regrets.

He laughs a little. It's been a while since he last felt this way. Four years ago, to be exact, when he was able to save Sehun from the brink of danger. The case he'd just solved earlier is similar to Sehun's, in a sense, only a bit trickier given the complication of the patient suffering from a severe case of haemophilia. But then complications are the spice of any case, the flavor to the otherwise bland and boring circumstance that Joonmyun can provide answers to in a blink of an eye. He stretches his arms in front of him, then, flexing his fingers as the tries to get rid of the tension in his hands.

He shifts his gaze to his left, then sucks on his bottom lip. Yixing still isn't done with what he's working on, but it looks as if he's inching closer to the end now. The beat he's drumming on the table with his pen has become faster, more powerful, with only small and quick gaps between beats when his wrist is already sore. He's typing faster, as well, fingers flitting from one side of the keyboard to the other with relative ease.

So Joonmyun slips beside Yixing and hovers, maintaining a safe distance between them. He can make out a few familiar words in the text, some things that he can recite from the top of his head without pausing to rehearse his lines. Something about using body language as an easy means of detecting the stages of terminal illness and how subtle physical therapy can help treat patients who are at the brink of dying. _Saving lives._ "You... work in the sciences, as well?" he tries, then, voice soft and tentative, and it takes Yixing no more than five seconds to drop the pen he was gripping tight earlier and steal a glance at Joonmyun.

"Geeky stuff, yeah. Stuff heroes do, except I do it using medicine and chemicals. _Yay,_ " Yixing replies. He draws his shoulders back, then cracks his neck. Breathes a sigh of relief when he feels a tense muscle relax. Then he shifts in his seat, looking up and fixing his gaze on Joonmyun this time, his eyes widening at the same time that he parts his lips. "Hang on. You said 'as well'. You mean you–" He points an accusing finger at Joonmyun but drops it all at once, replacing it instead with the cock of an eyebrow. "You're in the sciences, as well? Doing... doctor stuff?"

I could be saving lives, Joonmyun muses. He's saved far more people than his fingers can count, but then he's also failed to keep some promises, failed to help some people see the sun again and just... tossed them into a bottomless pit of darkness. It feels weird, _unsettling_ just thinking about it, but then doctors aren't gods. There's no assurance that you'll come out brand new and shiny again after going through surgery, no telling if you'll even make it through the operation or somehow get stuck in the middle, toeing the line between life and death. Luck will always be that deciding factor playing favorites and watching from over a doctor's shoulder.

"Yeah. Sort of," Joonmyun replies. He scratches his nape, then presses down on the tense muscles with his ring and index fingers. "I haven't been... practicing in years."

Yixing leans in for a moment, hovering, but sinks back in his seat soon after. "Was it that bad, your last surgery?" he asks, voice just above a whisper, then he's shaking his head and waving his hands in front of him. "Forget I even asked. It's not something you should–" He breathes in deep, then lets out all the air in his lungs in a huff as he says, "I mean, after putting so much work into trying to get to where you are, there can only be one thing that can make you stop doing what you want so that was a really, _really_ stupid question–"

And it's stupid to be trying to hide behind that veil of nonchalance, he muses as he studies the way Yixing worries his bottom lip. It's been years and really, he should have gotten over that tragic accident by now. Baekhyun wouldn't have wanted him to live such a miserable life and hole himself up in a mansion miles away from everything and everyone else. Baekhyun would _hate_ him for that. He shrugs, then, waves off the tension with light laughter.

"Not the last surgery. I saved someone's life that time. It was fun," Joonmyun says. He snorts. "It was the one before that that made me... quit." He laughs at himself. "Sort of."

"Except you really can't just stay away," Yixing adds, cocking his head in the direction of the pile of papers on the other side of the table. "Research?"

"That's me trying to help people not screw up ever again."

Yixing furrows his eyebrows and chuckles. "Impossible. You're bound to screw up at some point. It's programmed in your DNA." He flexes his fingers, cracking his knuckles one by one, but he doesn't look away from Joonmyun yet. If anything, he's just studying Joonmyun's features all the more, taking in the smallest, most unnoticeable quirks of Joonmyun's face with the way his gaze maps patches of heat on Joonmyun's skin. He sucks in his bottom lip for a moment, like taking a quick breath, then licks his lips as he finishes, "It's how you get back up those fuck ups that makes you a good doctor."

"And yet here you are," Joonmyun counters, a corner of his lips curling up. He wants to laugh, wants to tell himself that, look, Joonmyun, look at yourself in the mirror and see if you tell yourself with a straight face that you're still not the shabbiest doctor after ending someone's life. But that's not the point. The silence wrapping around them thickens, unbearable and uncomfortable, until it wraps around Joonmyun's neck in a tight, tight grip.

It takes a while to sink in, what he'd just said, how he'd said it, how he'd just accused a friend of fucking things up and not ever finding a way to redeem himself in his profession, so he tries to make up for it and holds his hands up – in defense, to reach out, as a reminder to keep himself from saying something stupid that he'll eventually regret, he doesn't know. Fresh from doing academic work, it's always more difficult to think, a lot more challenging to make sound decisions. He's just going with gut feel now; at least that one rarely lets him down. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to– I'm _not saying_ that you did something wrong and that's why you're here and not in the hospital–"

"I did," Yixing interrupts, sputtering the syllables like he's shocked himself into saying it. His eyes aren't blown wide open, though, and his cheeks aren't shaking. His lips aren't even trembling. And he's shifting in his seat so that he can see Joonmyun better, his body facing Joonmyun now when he lets go of the pen he was holding earlier and clasps his hands on his lap, instead. "Around... three years ago, if I'm not mistaken? Handed over a shitty analysis of findings on my patients behavior and have him the wrong medication, in the process," he confesses. He worries his bottom lip, presses the pads of his fingers against each other and takes quick breaths with every stretch. Joonmyun watches, then, as the tips of Yixing's fingers turn white with every hard push, as Yixing's hands shake at the pressure. As Yixing lets out another low exhale, his lips tugging up just a little at the corners when he lifts his gaze again to look at Joonmyun. "Though to be fair, the patient wasn't transparent about his medical history. I mean, there's only so much that doctors can figure out, right? How were we supposed to know that he took drugs a decade ago but he was completely clean the time we performed the tests _but then_ the damage had already been done? How–" Yixing scoffs. "How were we supposed to know that he had allergic reactions to certain medicine when the only way we'd find out without him telling us is by actually testing those substances on him?"

Joonmyun furrows his eyebrows, drops his gaze to where he has one hand curled around the back of Yixing's chair. Classic bullshit that doctors have to go through at one point in their careers, maybe even twice. Thrice, if they're unlucky. But Yixing's mouth is twisted into this weird sort of frown that Joonmyun has never seen him wear before. A look reserved only for when he knows neither what to say nor how to feel.

"He was one of us, Joonmyun. He was a fellow doctor, a _friend_." Yixing huffs, blowing air at his bangs, then shakes his head. "He had a bright career ahead of him, that man. He was probably going to graduate at the top of the batch. He was _that good._ But then– You know how the system works. We all have different ways of coping with… the pressure, the stress. With _life._ "

"And he... chose to go down the drugs route," Joonmyun continues, voice just above a whisper. Yixing catches it, though, nods, and slumps in his seat. It makes Joonmyun want to run his hands along Yixing's shoulders, press down on the tense muscles with his thumbs just _feel_ Yixing relax in his touch. It makes him want to reach out, thread his fingers between Yixing's own, hoping to fill the gaps between Yixing's speech with whatever he can offer.

But that’s not what Yixing needs right now. What Yixing needs is someone who can and will listen, find music in his words, someone who won’t raise a fist at the first sign of an opposing opinion but will take note of the point to be raised for future discussion. And Joonmyun can be that person for Yixing right now. He can be exactly what Yixing needs.

"We could've done– _I_ could’ve done something to make him stop. Or even dissuade him from picking up his first pack, even, but–" Yixing shakes his head. "I know it's bad to just keep thinking about what could have been but what if, just _what if,_ I took the pack from him and threw it away? What if I–“ He laughs, like he can’t believe what he’s saying or just can’t believe that he’s still trying to make sense of all these things too many years after. “What if I locked him up somewhere so he couldn’t get people _and himself_ into trouble anymore?"

"It's a temporary solution," Joonmyun says, curt and honest. Yixing blows a stream of air against his bangs, fluffing them up a bit. Diversionary tactics, Joonmyun thinks – Yixing can be quite the escape artist if he just puts his heart into it. He could distract someone with his blinding smile while his hands did something else. It's just a quick fix, though – the dark circles still pull down at Yixing's cheeks and paint him a sickly color. His eyes are still sullen. And his smile keeps weakening. "If he ever wanted to stop dealing and taking them, he'd have done something. So you have to get to the root of the problem–"

“Attack the very core,” Yixing adds, laughing a little. He lets out a long sigh. “Try to change him from the inside."

“Sort of a system boot, yeah,” Joonmyun finishes. He curls his fingers into fists, just tight enough that he can feel the tension at the back of his hands. “But he has to help himself. Otherwise he’ll just… keep pushing you all away, repelling any and all forms of treatment."

Yixing peeks from the gaps between his hair and chuckles. "Wish I had your wisdom when I was that young," he whispers, then rubs the tip of his nose. "Maybe then I wouldn’t have tried making him go through rehab when it was so clear he didn’t want to. And I wouldn’t have ended up screwing up almost all my cases after that that I’d have to stop practicing."

And we wouldn't have met, a voice at the back of Joonmyun's mind says. The pulse in his temples throbs. His stomach twists, wraps his insides in a vicious grip, then turns. He tightens his hold on the wood, curls his fingers in even more until he can feel his nails digging into his skin in an effort to keep himself from saying something he might regret, but then he's just clipped his nails two days ago. He did it after Yixing told him that he could leaves scars of people with how he loved slapping Yixing on the arm when he was too tired to argue his case, the way his nails caught on Yixing's skin and left bright red marks there that lingered until the end of the night. And the last thing he wants right now is to go around hurting people, leaving pieces of himself on people even if they never wanted to be part of Joonmyun's evil scheme.

"Do you really regret it, though? Turning him in, distancing yourself from the practice?" Joonmyun asks. He pulls away from where he was pressed close to the back of Yixing's seat but doesn't stray too much. Just stays a few good inches away from Yixing knowing that touches say more than words ever can and that Yixing might not want to speak that language this time. "I know doctors who've dropped their tools in favor for a less... stressful life. They've never been happier."

Yixing laughs a little. "I miss it sometimes – talking to people all the time, figuring out what makes them tick and what clicks with them, trying to come up with a cure to some–" He pauses, laughing and rolling his eyes in accord, then continues, "–some disease even standard science can't 'decode' or whatever. It feels nice, being able to save people and give them hope. But at the same time, the pressure is just too much. It's like you're being trained to be a god, and you have nine units on how to handle depressing situations such as death."

Joonmyun snorts. "Having to break the news to people is ten times more difficult," he adds, voice dropping to a whisper. Yixing looks up at him, tilting his head and blinking a few times as if trying to recalibrate. Trying to read Joonmyun again when he's supposed to be doing nothing else but venting and just letting off some steam. This is it, Joonmyun muses, Yixing's training kicking in, the stimulus he'd developed to _feeling_ people's need for care or comfort rushing to the surface. "I've had to do it... five times, I think?"

Yixing hums, then shifts even more in his position until he's leaning against the table, one arm rested on the edge of the table just behind him and his other hand limp on his thigh. "Have you tried breaking the news to relatives?"

"Never really had to," Joonmyun answers. He scratches his nape. "I work with survivors of crashes. 90% of the time, their relatives are already dead–"

"Ten times," Yixing says, holding up both hands, fingers splayed in the air. "Had to do it ten times. Thrice to my own family; the other seven times, to the family of my friends. It's–" He snorts. "It just leaves such a lasting impression on you." From where Joonmyun is, he can see the faint, familiar twinkle in Yixing's eyes, the subtle upward curl of his lips. He's recovering, and he's recovering really quickly. Much like how he switches from one expression to another in a blink of an eye, too fast that Joonmyun sometimes isn't able to catch those tiny, minute changes in the way he quirks his lips, lifts an eyebrow, in the way he stares. His lips tremble a little, though, just before laughs, low and dry. He sounds like someone who ran a marathon twice without getting hydrated, or like he'd been out the whole day selling milk while screaming at the top of his lungs or singing the whole time.

Yixing's a pretty good singer. He has the type of voice that can calm down the tempest, even the most vengeful of storms. He can silence even the loudest of voices at the back of Joonmyun's mind.

And he can stir up a storm inside Joonmyun, as well.

"Not as much as watching someone die in your... gloved hands," Joonmyun retorts, laughing a little. He shakes his head, then drops his gaze to his feet. "And even if you do end up saving them, things just... won't be the same anymore."

Yixing tilts his head to the other side and rests one hand on the jut of Joonmyun's waist. Three taps on his skin, then he motions for Joonmyun to come closer, pulls Joonmyun in his direction until Joonmyun's standing between Yixing's thighs. "What do you mean?"

Joonmyun takes a deep breath. Stupid move, he tells himself as he feels Yixing tap another series of beats on his bone, humming this time around. He shouldn't have dropped that bomb out of the blue, shouldn't have gotten lost in his own thoughts again. Shouldn't have even entertained the thought of getting too much into detail about the past because what good has that ever done for him? Revisiting the past is good for research, case studies. His life isn't a big case study; it's the perfect example of what goes wrong when you don't think things through.

But then Yixing isn't really prodding. He's just there, looking up at Joonmyun with a focused gaze and a small smile on his lips that makes Joonmyun's insides turn. Yixing isn't just waiting for an answer or even for Joonmyun to just _say something_ ; he's giving Joonmyun a choice. If he wanted to extract information from Joonmyun for a while now then he already would have. He'd have stood from his seat and fastened his palms on Joonmyun's shoulders, would have gripped Joonmyun tight by the arms. And he would have asked 'what happened' instead of what Joonmyun wanted to say. Just in case, y'know, Joonmyun ever wanted to take something back. It isn't the end of the road yet.

Joonmyun licks his lips, sucks in his bottom lip as he feels the pads of his fingers grow cold. Yixing's gaze flickers, drops south to the gentle swell of Joonmyun's mouth before meeting Joonmyun's unsteady gaze again. It's all in the past now, right? So it shouldn't bother him as much anymore, just thinking about what happened five years ago, when Baekhyun took a leap of faith and placed all his trust in Joonmyun's hands, trust him not to fuck things up and end his life. It shouldn't be too hard to tell Yixing about it, what with all the years that were supposed to haev softened the blow already. Besides, Yixing shared a piece of his past just a few minutes ago, and won't it be just fair to share a fraction of himself, as well? Because that's what friends do, right, try to pry each other open in the hope of pulling out the shards wedged between the happy memories of the past to ease the pain, maybe lift it completely?

"It was one of those special cases, the one I handled," Joonmyun begins, pausing only to shift in his position. Yixing pulls him closer, though, like he needs warmth more than personal space at the moment. Joonmyun isn't sure if he minds. "There was... there was this car crash survivor who lost his parents in, well, the crash. _What else._ " Joonmyun laughs, more at himself than anything else. He takes another quick breath, easing the knot in his chest just a little, then continues, "And it's a special case because the manifestation of the trauma was in the guy slowly going translucent. Could've been harmless because he was still alive, for the most part, but his vital signs kept going down the more he hollowed out."

Yixing leans back, eyebrows furrowed a little. "So he's alive, but you... couldn't see him? I mean his entire body? Like, he'd have, what, an ear going translucent then a quarter of his torso gone, something like that?"

" _Half,_ " Joonmyun corrects. He lets out a long sigh. "At one point, during rehab, he almost lost one leg. He couldn't feel it anymore. So I tried to save him, did some tests and sort of tried to craft this technology that can help him stay alive despite all those missing patches of himself."

"Is that even possible?"

Joonmyun shrugs, gives the house a quick scan, then shifts his gaze back to Yixing. "This whole mansion was built to sustain him, stop him from losing more of himself and sort of try to help him regain all those lost... physical attributes. Regenerate cells and tissues, in a sense. And given that they're not part of his 'original' make up, the virus he'd contracted won't spread and eat him up from the inside anymore." he explains, then takes a quick breath. "Everything here is... one more chance after another at living again. That's how the house works. Keep fruits in the fridge for weeks and you won't have to worry about them going overripe. Cook something and it will never go stale unless you do something weird to it. But you'll have to keep something for the technology and the magic surrounding the premises to keep alive."

Yixing nods, slow and deliberate, then parts his lips to speak. "So if you lose that vessel of life, there's no chance of bringing it back, is that it?" he asks. Joonmyun lifts his eyebrows in approval, nodding in light bobs of the head. "What... happened with him, then? I mean, as long as he stayed within the... perimeter of the property, I guess, he'd be safe. Right? Or am I missing something?"

Then it was one mistake after another, Joonmyun's tempted to say because really, how else will he explain it? It turned out that the virus had already taken root in Baekhyun's very core. Baekhyun did a pretty good job at not looking as if he was in pain half the time. And Joonmyun did a shoddy job at being ten steps ahead, at trying to combat the virus instead of just tempering it. Even if the technology and magic that the mansion nursed helped slow down the virus from reaching other parts of Baekhyun's system, the point was that it was _still there._ They were never able to take it out complete. It was bound to stay there forever unless they could infuse Baekhyun's body with an antidote, a counter to the virus, something that could cancel it out. So Baekhyun didn't _die;_ he disappeared, inch by inch.

Two months after the big breakout, he'd lose a portion of his finger a day. The following month, he'd begin to lose his knees, his legs, his ankles, his feet. He'd be immobile for the next few months, but he'd still be around, telling Joonmyun that there was still hope. His chest hadn't gone hollow yet. His heart was still beating and his brain was still working, processing his actions, making sound decisions. There was no reason for any of them to give up.

"Not yet. He... didn't disappear completely yet," Joonmyun says after a while. He could feel the gentle brush of Yixing's thumb on his skin, the way he's slowed down yet the pulse on his thumb has become quicker. More panicked. So Joonmyun tries to smile, tries to tell Yixing that _it's okay,_ some stories just have a really tragic ending. Then, after a deep breath, he continues, "It took a while. He put up a good fight, said he could go through one more operation, at the very least, because he was still feeling strong enough."

"That's..." Yixing stills, thumb resting on Joonmyun's waist instead of tapping irregular beats on it. "That's risky. Anything can happen when you're on the table."

"He knew that," Joonmyun answers. He laughs a little. "But he didn't care. Told us he'd try to buy us time so we could take out the virus completely." He shakes his head at the memory, at the image of Baekhyun's weak yet triumphant smile when he woke up hours after the operation. His hair was sticky and he smelled like he hadn't showered in days but Joonmyun couldn't care less, simply took Baekhyun in his arms and kissed him like there was nothing else he could be breathing in but Baekhyun. Like it would be their last. "And well, we did it. He got his limbs back slowly but surely. The following week, he was walking around the institute again. But he never made it past the building's doors."

Joonmyun bites the inside of his cheek. He can feel his eyes getting heavy, wet at the corners where the tears are beading up. If Baekhyun were still here, he'd be laughing at Joonmyun silly one minute then crying with him the next. He never was the best at holding back his tears, after all. "And maybe it just took a while for his body to realize that the virus had been taken out. _Extracted_ from his body, not killed from the inside," Joonmyun goes on to say, voice dropping to a whisper. "So the next thing we knew, Baekhyun was having seizures. His heart rate was so unstable, kept fluctuating for the next few minutes. He couldn't– _I_ couldn't do anything for him even if I knew how to fix the mess. I just had to take some of the virus again, plant it back in his body and culture it there, then infuse his body with an antidote so that the recovery process wouldn't be too abrupt–"

He takes a deep, deep breath, shuts his eyes and tilts his head up even before he can feel the tears crawl down his cheeks. Men his age shouldn't be crying over mistakes and wrong calls. Men his age should find it easy to break free from ghosts of the past that have been haunting them for five long years. But the dull ache in his chest remains, the same pain he'd felt that day, that exact moment when he held Baekhyun's body, fast becoming translucent, in his arms, the racing in his chest dropping under the shrill sound of the heart monitor filling the room, wrapping around his throat like a vice and keeping him from breathing easily. It makes stomach turn. It makes him _shiver._

"It's not your fault, Joonmyun," comes Yixing's voice, soft as a whisper. Then Joonmyun hears the shift of the seats, the legs of the chairs squeaking against the floor, hears Yixing's shallow breathing so close to him. He doesn't open his eyes yet. He can't let Yixing see him like this – a complete mess, a wreck, _a disaster._ It's enough that he knows about it. "There are only so many things you can do to save someone–"

"The seizures weren't my fault, yes," Joonmyun blurts out. His voice cracks somewhere in between, as he tries to feel his throat again and find his words in the pile of his muddled thoughts. "But what happened to him after that, after he flatlined and I tried to revive him, that was my fault."

Yixing hiccups. Joonmyun catches the sound of his shaky breathing, Yixing's hot breath prickling his skin. They're close, too close for comfort, and it's becoming more difficult to breathe, so Joonmyun takes a step back as he opens his eyes. It takes a while for his vision to refocus, the nasty beads of tears getting in the way, but he gets there. He can see it now, Yixing parting his lips, poised to say something, _to ask,_ and before even a sliver of sound can escape Yixing's lips, he beats him to it, pulls down one side of his shirt by the collar to reveal an expanse of flesh.

"You–" Yixing lifts his gaze, looking at Joonmyun in the eye before shifting back to marvel at Joonmyun's skin, the curve of his neck, his collarbones – where all these are supposed to be. "Your shoulder's... gone."

Joonmyun... feels too cold all of a sudden. It's been a while since he's last shown this to anyone, even Sehun who claims he's seen Joonmyun crawl out of the showers half-naked. Can't be true, Joonmyun wanted to say then, because how could Sehun have seen him? Half of his body's hollow. The only thing that's giving him form is the shirt he slips on every single day, a while longsleeved top that covers everything that the translucent form of his torso has exposed. He can feel the loud thumping in his chest but _can't see anything_ , can only feel Yixing's cold fingers dancing where Yixing _thinks_ his skin is supposed to be. "How?" is the only thing Yixing asks. He doesn't need to say more; his wandering hands spill the rest of his thoughts all over Joonmyun's skin. " _How?_ "

"I was the only person he was exposed to on a regular basis. And not just him – I handled similar cases in the past. A handful of them. It... It made sense that I'd contracted the same condition, somehow," Joonmyun whispers. He stares at his body now, laughing when he feels a sudden flush of heat against the pads of his fingers. It's always an experience, reminding himself that he's still whole, still in one piece, it's just that there are parts of him that are hidden from the world but he's _still human._ "The spreading has stopped, though. Or maybe it has slowed down a lot, I don't know. I’ve healed up a bit, definitely. I used to be more translucent than whole." He begins to map a line down his chest, then, stopping just above where his shirt bunches at the collars. "When I extracted some of the virus from myself to make a quick antidote, I lost half of my body and hadn't felt anything since–"

"It's... fascinating," Yixing whispers, eyes still fixed on the empty space where Joonmyun's skin is supposed to be. He's touching nothing in particular but he's _almost there_ , just a breath away, that if Joonmyun's body gave a sudden involuntary jerk then Yixing would be touching him already. Close enough that if Yixing ever wanted to splay his fingers all over Joonmyun's skin, he would. But he isn't. He maintains those few safe centimeters between them, just lets his fingers hover, but leans closer until his face is just inches away from Joonmyun's collarbone. "You've been living half a decade of your life like this? Isn't it– Doesn't it feel a lot like–"

"Living a half-life?" Joonmyun asks, laughing a little. "I _am_ living a half-life. I don't know what will happen to me if I stay outside for too long. I don't– I don't _know_ if I can even stay out for more than ten minutes or something." He shakes his head. The last time he heard the question was when Jongdae found out about the sacrifice he made just to save Baekhyun, the day after Baekhyun slipped out of his coma and looked at the people around him like he knew none of them, knew not a single person in the world. Jongdae snuck a glance at him as soon as Baekhyun started asking who they were, why they were there, _why am I here?_ Minseok wouldn't meet him in the eye, but he did grab Joonmyun by the wrist to whisper, _I don't know what the hell you did but I do know that it's not the right thing. Fix this, Joonmyun. Fix this mess._

Joonmyun takes a deep breath now and closes his eyes. The way Minseok furrowed his eyebrows that time, the way he twisted his mouth like it was the only way he could keep himself from lashing out at Joonmyun makes him shiver now, years after it happened. The sting is still there, thick in his throat in the form of blood. And he can cough it out really, but what gives? The dull pain will always be there, ever present, ever aching. He's not even whole anymore; half of him is hollow, translucent. He shouldn't be feeling a thing.

"Ever tried to walk around the place? Just to… ease yourself into being out there again?" Yixing asks now, pressing his hand on Joonmyun's skin. Joonmyun seethes at the first contact, at the sudden surge of warmth, at the feeling of Yixing's pulse dancing on his skin. Yixing laughs a little but doesn't press harder, doesn't tease Joonmyun even more. Instead he just looks up, meeting Joonmyun's eyes through the slits of his bangs. "You've got a nice, big garden in front. I've always wondered how you maintain the plant life here when you seem to be the last person who'd be into gardening."

" _Excuse me,_ " Joonmyun retorts, but soon the words lodge themselves in his throat, coaxing a gasp from him, instead. "I'm good at gardening and planting vegetables–"

"Then maybe you should see more of the area," Yixing adds. He drums a soft beat on Joonmyun's chest, the pads of his fingers just _grazing_ Joonmyun's skin. "There's a nice open field at the back that leads to a lake. I bet you haven't seen that, ever."

Joonmyun gulps down hard. He _has_ seen it before, too many years ago to count. With Yura, most likely. She's the one who's a fan of bodies of water and long walks and summer breeze; the lot of it just rubbed off on Joonmyun. And that's just how Joonmyun is – quick to adapt, seemingly easy to bend, but ultimately solid as a rock. It's the very reason he's stayed here long after Baekhyun has already gone and left the institution to go find himself again – it's safe, convenient. Everything he needs is already _right here,_ so why turn his back on a house he'd created just to _keep Baekhyun alive_ when it's still serving him well?

"I have, a long time ago," Joonmyun confesses. He drops his gaze to where Yixing's been worrying his bottom lip, the soft pink skin now screaming an angry shade of red. "It's probably changed a bit."

"The smallest change can be huge when you haven't gone out to see the sun forever," Yixing counters. He hovers for a bit, breathes out through slightly parted lips, almost as if he means to say something, instead, but then he pulls away. He takes a step back, drops his hands to his sides, stuffs them in the pockets of his pants and offers Joonmyun a tight-lipped smile. "If you ever... feel like going around, taking a nice, long walk in the field, just let me know," he adds after a while, then chuckles. "I've been going there at least once a week for the past year. It helps... clear the mind."

Joonmyun laughs to himself. Silence works against him sometimes, makes him drown in the other voices in his head all the more. Makes it easy for him to get lost in his own thoughts. And his mind is never a nice place to be in. It's a strange, dark world that even he, himself, doesn't fancy getting trapped in. So he asks, "Do you think it would be good to write papers there? Conducive for work?"

Something in Yixing's expression flickers, like a switch has been turned off then on then back off in a blink of an eye. And then he's back – the corners of his mouth tugged up in a gentle, subtle curl, his cheeks relaxed even with gravity pushing it up. He lets his shoulders fall forward as he lets out a low exhale, parting his lips to speak. "Haven't tried yet, but I guess we can find that out together."

Joonmyun snorts. "I haven't gone out of this place in _years,_ Yixing. What makes you think I'll step out of my house this time around?"

Yixing hums. Shrugs his shoulders, as well, and tilts his head to the side like he's trying to get a better view of Joonmyun. But there is no _better angle;_ every side of Joonmyun looks the same. There's nothing to be read between the lines. There is no reason for Yixing to walk closer again until the tips of their toes bump. He can get used to this, Joonmyun thinks, the oddly comforting warmth and distance between them, the way their gazes always seem to lock onto each other. The way Yixing looks at him like he's the most interesting specimen ever and that he can spend years studying Joonmyun, peeling off his layers one by one.

But then there are things he can't understand, doesn't want to understand just yet: the way his stomach lurches at every touch, every contact, the way his heart races in his chest whenever Yixing looks his way to offer a smile too warm that it burns the back of his eyelids. The way Yixing so easily coaxes Joonmyun to slip out of whatever he's gotten so used to – swinging the door open to welcome a stranger, stepping outside to head into the storm to help out a friend. Sharing a fraction of himself, one he'd scribbled Baekhyun's name on, so that Yixing can ease the dull ache on Joonmyun's back that he's been carrying around for so long.

"Well, it's worth a shot," Yixing says. He cocks an eyebrow at Joonmyun, then, and lets out a loud exhale. "So, picnic tomorrow?" Yixing sucks in his bottom lip, worrying it for a bit, then continues, "It's a weekend, after all. We can try to do our papers there, if you want."

You're ridiculous, Joonmyun wants to say, but then it's not such a bad idea. What's wrong with going out on a Saturday to share some food and maybe a few jokes with a friend? What's wrong with finding a new place he can grow fond of and find peace in? What's wrong with trying to do something _different?_ So he shrugs, laughs, hums. Cracks his neck and shivers when he feels a jolt of electricity shoot up his nape.

"I'll take care of the coffee. You're in charge with the food," Joonmyun mutters. Yixing widens his eyes in response, drawing his index finger close to his chest as if seeking confirmation. "No cookies. We can't have cookies for lunch–"

"I'll just come to your place early to cook."

Joonmyun leans back, furrowing his eyebrows in accord. "You live at least an hour away from my house. If you're coming over to cook then you have to be here, at the earliest, by–"

"Or I can stay the night, if you'll let me," Yixing singsongs, locking his arms behind his back. He sways from side to side, slow and gentle, much like a pendulum that's been set in motion for far too long already. "Just say the magic word."

Joonmyun takes a deep breath. Yixing leans back against the table again, but he hasn't looked away yet. His eyes are still focused on Joonmyun, his gaze heavy, discerning. _Questioning._ Like he, himself, isn't sure of what he's asking from Joonmyun just yet; it's just that he knows they're having a picnic tomorrow and they need to cook something for lunch that isn't warm milk or cookies. Joonmyun isn't sure either – why he's thinking this through so much, why he's even taking time assessing the situation at all. It's just a picnic. They've fallen asleep on the same couch before, woken up tangled in each others arms. And they're still here, standing just a few inches away from each other, pushing each other away just a little but not tearing each other apart.

They just have to cook good food and sit beside each other in companionable silence. Nothing has to change.

"Yeah, sure," Joonmyun says, then, dropping the syllables before he can even swallow them down. Then he pulls away, turns on his heel, walks over to where he was sitting earlier to file the research material in a file case big enough to hold bundles an inch thick. He can feel the weight of Yixing's stare, can still feel the way Yixing's hot breath prickled his skin earlier, but he doesn't look up. Instead, he keeps his eyes fixed on what he's doing and ignores the familiar loud thumping in his chest, the flush of his cheeks, the violent upward tug at the corners of his lips.

☀

It's summer in earnest when Sehun returns from his trip. There are strange patches of color on his skin, his cheeks burnt more than the rest of his body. His hair is much, much longer now, almost reaching past his chin. Not the longest it's been – that was three years ago, when Sehun still refused to leave the premises of the mansion to head out into the city to buy food and toiletries, see what it is to be with other people again, see if he still wants to live that kind of life.

He gets a haircut every quarter now, just so his fair won't grow to such unmanageable lengths anymore that he'd have to tie it up in a ponytail just so he can work without getting his hair in his face. "You're the one who wears long hair better," Sehun told Joonmyun one time, while he was sharpening the blades of the scissors he was about to cut Joonmyun's hair with. "I don't know why, but it makes you look more handsome than you already are."

"Don't be silly," Joonmyun recalls himself telling Sehun that time. He still pushed through with the haircut, though, cut a bit closer to the scalp that time until he could feel the wind pass through the strands of his hair again. It made him feel light, free, without anything to worry about. It was the happiest he'd felt in a long, long time.

"Stop making that face," Joonmyun says through gritted teeth this time, mouth pulled up at the corners in a tense smile when Sehun rolls his eyes at him. He kicks Sehun in the calf for good measure when he's sure Yixing's already well out of sight, having disappeared around the corner to help shuffle Sehun's luggages to somewhere more spacious. "You look weird. You're making that alpaca face of yours." Sehun sneers at him, and Joonmyun throws a jab in his direction in retaliation. "I don't think trips are supposed to do that to people, Sehunnie. You're supposed to come back _a better man._ "

"And I never thought you had a thing for our milk man, hyung," Sehun singsongs, grinning even as he pulls a heavy luggage up the stairs. His arms look more toned, as well, Joonmyun notes – maybe Sehun really did climb mountains. Maybe miracles do exist. Maybe change _is_ possible. Joonmyun files that thought to the very back of his mind, somewhere between the data he was supposed to be analyzing before Yixing showed up at his doorstep this morning and the insane urge to get a taste of the kimchi jjigae Yixing had cooked for him a few days back. "If you'd told me earlier then I could have had you two exchange numbers _a long time ago!_ We're friends; I could've helped you–"

"Stop," Joonmyun mutters, narrowing his eyes at Sehun in the process. He can hear footsteps in the distance, blending well with soft humming of a song that Joonmyun's pretty sure he's supposed to remember. He was singing that song earlier; Yixing makes it easy to forget bitter memories and remember the good ones. "We're friends, too. We drink milk together. And eat cookies." Yixing has wrapped his arms around Joonmyun a couple of times, as well, buried his face in Joonmyun's hair and whispered, lips pressed to his scalp, _you smell nice. And you look nice with long hair._ Joonmyun has only ever returned the favor by standing still, not pulling away, leaning into the warmth of Yixing's touch and tilting his head back until Yixing could accidentally-on-purpose press his lips to the underside of Joonmyun's jaw.

Friends get a bit too cozy sometimes. He'd gotten drunk with Minseok before and maybe thought of how his lips would be perfect for kissing, but then Minseok was his superior. He was in some twisted relationship with Yura that time. He'd been in a pretty healthy relationship with work. He wasn't about to screw things up with a carnal urge so spontaneous that it could've just been alcohol-induced. "We're friends, like the two of you are," Joonmyun says again, syllables dropped in chunks of sounds, blunt and rough. "Milk... drinking buddies, nothing else."

Sehun squirms, the corners of his mouth pulling down to a frown. He's still dragging his luggage behind him, though, still walking to clearer space where the rest of his things are arranged in a straight line. He hasn't lost sight of what he should be doing yet. Trust Sehun to be able to juggle roles even when he's fashioning a frown so unrehearsed. "Look, hyung, I don't need to know what you do with each other's milk or how you _eat your cookies–_ "

"The milk that _he sells._ I said–" Joonmyun says, interrupting, and pinches Sehun in his side when Sehun snickers. " _Stop making that face!_ It's _just milk!_ " He lets the syllables roll off his tongue this time, drawls each sound and lets it hang in the air a little longer like it can change things. Probably not, but there's nothing but truth scrawled all over Joonmyun's words – Yixing has never made any advances, has only ever hugged him and buried his face in Joonmyun's chest and smelled his hair. They've never held hands, ever, simply let the pads of their fingers touch. They've never kissed, either. If Joonmyun ever wonders how it would be to ball his hand into a tight fist in Yixing's shirt and pull him close, close, _closer_ until all that separates them is light laughter, a hitch of the breath, he doesn't act on it. Instead, he just drops his gaze to the peculiar curl at the corners of Yixing's lips and takes a deep, deep breath.

Sehun's lips give a funny tremble, a light, upward quirk. Joonmyun cocks an eyebrow at him as a last warning, then drops the look at the first sound of Yixing's voice. "Do you need help getting all of these to your room or something?" Yixing asks, eyebrows lifted as he presses his lips together in a small smile. "Because I don't think you and Joonmyunnie can, you know–"

"Say it," Joonmyun counters, voice sharp and heavy. Yixing holds his hands up in defense and shakes his head. And he's biting his lower lip like it's the only thing keeping him from bursting into a lovely peal of laughter. The corners of his lips tug up even more with each passing second but he doesn't give in yet, not even when his shoulders are shaking and the rest of his body is already roaring in laughter.

Yixing has won this without even doing anything, it's hilarious. And it makes Joonmyun shiver, as well, makes his chest feel tight and his throat go dry.

Yixing helps them out with the other luggage, in the end. He asks for payment in the form of good food and company, nothing else, "It's not a big deal, really," but under the table he brushes the tips of his toes against Joonmyun's ankle, slides up his foot until he's scored a line of heat along Joonmyun's calf. There must be a hundred – no, a _thousand_ questions – running in Joonmyun's mind right now – what are you doing, why are you doing this, why should it matter at all, _how_ can you make me feel this way – but he zeroes in on just one and replays it in his head, again and again, until Yixing's laughter, soft and warm, crawls up his nape and wraps around his throat in a tight, vicious grip.

_Why not?_

☀

"I really have to get used to this whole 'you getting up early in the morning' thing, _master,_ " Sehun says when he looks over his shoulder to acknowledge Joonmyun's arrival. He flicks the switch for the coffeemaker off, then takes the pot from where its resting in its slot in the machine to set it down in front of Joonmyun. "It's just seven in the morning, hyung. Why are you even up?"

Joonmyun stretches his arms overhead and yawns. It's actually one of my 'later mornings,' he wants to argue, but then Sehun has been away for weeks, _months._ He hasn't seen Joonmyun's schedule transform from a strict eight-to-five task list with tiny packets of time in between for rest to a fluid one that accommodates both Yixing's need to have someone to talk to in the morning to jumpstart his day and Joonmyun's need for time to boot his mind even with Yixing startling his senses at such an early hour. And Yixing hasn't been visiting in the morning that much. "Slight change in schedule," Joonmyun recalls Yixing saying one time, but he has an inkling it has something to do waking up a bit too late. After all, Yixing has been spending the last few hours of the evening in Joonmyun's house more frequently these days. He’ll arrive at ten in the evening, sometimes armed with a change of clothes and his cart in tow, ready for his part-time work the following day. Other times, he'd show up with fruits and candies and more cookies that they finish half of by the time the clock strikes twelve. Then there are times when he'd just _be there,_ standing at Joonmyun's doorstep, bringing nothing but a warm smile and an equally warm touch. He won't leave until four, five hours after, when this side of the city's already quiet and the only mode of transportation he can catch back to his place is a cab. When Yixing feels like he's already emptied out his bag of stories for the day and can already hum a song to the tune of Joonmyun's steady breathing right beside him.

Joonmyun takes a deep breath and curls in his fingers. He can still remember Yixing's touches, the ones that are barely there but whose heat prickle his skin without any remorse. He can still remember how the slide of their bodies makes him shiver, especially when Yixing leans in close to whisper something in his ear. He never really says anything half the time, just breathes into the shell of Joonmyun's ear then pulls away with an easy smile. And then they're back to reading research material, back to doing their papers. Back to sneaking glances at each other and not looking away when they do trap each other in their gazes.

And Joonmyun’s back to thinking too much and doing too little, the only thing keeping his muscles from tensing being Yixing’s warmth just beside him. If there is a person who can melt even the toughest of hearts with a single brush of the hand, then it has to be Yixing. Joonmyun can't be mistaken. It can't be anyone else.

Sehun tears open a pack of brown sugar and hovers. He doesn't empty it out, doesn't mix the sweetener with the coffee just yet, but he does keep his eyes on Joonmyun, studying him with a careful gaze. Like Joonmyun is hiding something beyond the look of lethargy written all over his features, scrawled on his cheeks where indentations of the bed sheets have stuck. “Okay, that’s it. _Spill,_ " Sehun says after a while, leaning back into his seat and propping his chin on his elbow. "I want to hear the whole story, hyung. And don't tell me nothing happened while I was gone. I’ve seen how you two _act_ around each other, like you’re… dancing in weird circles because you don’t even know the song you’re dancing to.” He pauses, scratching his nape, then continues, “I mean, it’s not everyday you walk in on two people just... inches away from kissing each other but won't for some unknown reason. It doesn't work that way, hyung."

How does it work, then, Joonmyun wants to ask. How is it _supposed_ to work when he and Yixing haven't even entered some agreement, set limits and boundaries for each other, defined the kind of relationship they have at all? They're two people who just happened to bond over milk and cookies and science. Yixing cooks really good kimchi jjigae, the best Joonmyun has tasted since the last time Sehun felt like cooking stew for the two of them. Yixing is patient for things that matter, doesn't prod with words but only with a gentle poke of the cheek, a tilt of the head, a focused gaze.

Yixing has the kindest, warmest smile that makes Joonmyun feel like he can talk about anything and everything under the sun. And Joonmyun has a lot of things to talk about. Sometimes, he gets these weird ideas for the journals he writes and Yixing just indulges him, nods his head to Joonmyun's good ideas and cocks an eyebrow at him for the bad ones. Other times, Yixing gets a bit too passionate and engages in heated debates with him over breakthroughs in science that are, in fact, not helpful at all. But in all of those cases, they end up sharing a mug of milk and a bowl of cookies, with Yixing laughing at the face Joonmyun makes when he _really gets into it,_ the way Joonmyun twists his mouth and scrunches the rest of his features like he's about to go to war.

"I think that's the only time you can ever be un-cute," Joonmyun recalls Yixing commenting one time. Yixing watched him twirl the pasta in his fork through half-lidded eyes. The corners of his lips were pulled up in the softest, most vulnerable of smiles. Joonmyun almost wanted to reach out, cup Yixing's cheeks in his hands, and just hold Yixing from an arm's length, remembering the many reasons why he should just maintain this safe distance between them instead of leaning in for a kiss.

"There's nothing to talk about," Joonmyun mutters after a while. He offers Sehun a small smile before taking a sip of the coffee, then seethes when the liquid scalds his tongue. "Fuck, not again–"

There's the sound of bells ringing not too far away. If Joonmyun focuses, listens even more closely, he'll hear the sound of Yixing's light humming, but the stinging sensation in his tongue burns too much to ignore. So he reaches for the bottle of milk nearby, pours himself half a glass, and takes long, loud sip. It weans Sehun off of the case, makes Sehun roll his eyes and get up on his feet to answer the door, but it does little to still the racing in Joonmyun's chest. Does little to ease the burn of the lurching sensation in his stomach, even more when Sehun pauses in his tracks to look over his shoulder and say, "I don't know what's keeping you from talking about it, hyung, but I'll tell you this: whatever it was that happened, something good came out of it."

Joonmyun furrows his eyebrows, tilts his head to the opposite side. "What do you mean?"

"I mean–" Sehun's voice cracks towards the end, at the same time that the ringing gets louder. Joonmyun feels a corner of his lips tugs up on impulse, like a knee-jerk reaction he's developed in all the months that he's spent trying to study Yixing better. It's ridiculous – all he's ever developed in the years he's spent with Sehun is a fondness for the french toast Sehun cooks on weekends. That, and the knowledge that the best way to pacify Sehun is with a tight, tight hug and cookies and cream popsicles. "I haven't seen you this awake at an obscene hour, that's what I mean. I mean, I haven't seen you this _alive_ in years. I mean–" He laughs a little, shaking his head at the third burst of ringing. Joonmyun's ears perk up, and he tries to fight the urge to twist his torso, to get up, to answer the door, himself, and start his day with one of Yixing's small, unguarded smiles. But– "I know nothing about what went on between you and Baekhyun-hyung and how you were back then because that happened before my time but _hyung,_ you actually get up on your own now, without an alarm. You smile in the morning. You're looking at me in the eye pre-coffee. You're _talking with me,_ not just listening."

Joonmyun gulps down hard, trying to will his retort back down his throat. Those little things shouldn't matter. Any person who's too sleepy will not want to talk to anyone within the first hour of getting up. It's understandable. It shouldn't be a big deal. But there's something about the way Sehun shakes his head, the way Sehun's lips tug up into a small smile that tells him that maybe he should start reading between the lines. Have his eyes checked so he can see more clearly, maybe even take a step back so he can see the bigger picture.

He leans back a little and hears the bells ringing another time. "I'll get that," Joonmyun whispers, then, getting up from his seat and walking straight to the corridor leading to the receiving area. "And nothing's going on," he adds when he looks over his shoulder, just before disappearing into a corner. His stomach turns. it's just hunger at work, nothing too serious. "Nothing happened. We're just friends."

"And are you okay with that?" Sehun asks. He breathes in deep, shoulders lifting, then exhales in a loud, breathy sigh. His lips are still lifted at the corners, a gentle upward tug that breathes more hope into his question than it should. Sehun probably shouldn't. It's enough that Joonmyun's setting himself for a potential heartache; the last thing he wants is to drag Sehun into the mess he's made. "Or do you want to be more than that?"

Joonmyun looks up from where he's sipping his milk, just stares at Sehun with eyes wide open and lips pressed together in a thin, thin line. For the longest time, he's programmed himself to want nothing more than get eight hours of sleep everyday, to wake up to the scent of coffee and the knowledge that he's alive and bound to work until the whee hours of the morning. So when he gets more than that – a friend in Sehun, sometimes even a warm hug, and now butterflies n his stomach whenever Yixing smiles his way – he... doesn't know what to do. Doesn't even know how to deal with the weird, twisting sensation in his stomach whenever Yixing reaches out to touch, to wrap his arms around Joonmyun's small figure. Doesn't know if he wants more of the sweet, sickening sensation or if he wants less of it, maybe none at all. He doesn't want to go back to five years ago when Baekhyun waking up and not recognizing him broke him into pieces. He's just gotten to piecing himself together; he can't fall apart again.

So Joonmyun breathes out, blows bubbles into his drink as he whispers, "I don't know." A light nip of the bottom lip, then he repeats, "I... really don't know."

"Alright," Sehun whispers, then shrugs his shoulders. He walks over to where Joonmyun is to give Joonmyun's arm a light squeeze, then says before leaving, "I'll get the door. You... drink your coffee."

"Coffee's not a cure-all," Joonmyun replies, chuckling.

"It used to be, for you," Sehun counters. He looks over his shoulder, then adds, "I guess you've found a different cure-all now."

What is that even supposed to mean, Joonmyun wants to ask, but soon Sehun's retreating figure disappears around the corners. Silence settles back in, crawls under Joonmyun's skin and wraps around him in a tight, tight grip. Makes the pads of his fingers grow cold and stiff. He can hear the loud thumping in his chest, can feel it in the base of his throat, his palms, at the back of his ears, but soon the mingled sound of Sehun and Yixing's voices cuts through the noise inside him. He curls his fingers into tight fists, then, willing the strange thoughts away, pushing down all the words – unpolished, uncertain – down his throat for a later confession. For now, he'll down his coffee in a few gulps so he can drink some of the warm milk Yixing will be making for him – for _them_ – in a while. And he'll let all his thoughts get washed out by Yixing's bright smile, his tender touch, the weird but comforting fit of their bodies when Yixing links their ankles under the table.

It's just one of the many guilty pleasures he has. Yixing tops the list by a long, long mile.

☀

If Joonmyun was asked for a reason, just one reason, for not wanting to head to the capital even if work obliged him to, it's the amount of time he has to spend on the road not doing anything but studying the scenes he's leaving behind. It's the perfect opportunity to think, do some last-minute reading, maybe even rest. It's the perfect time to laze around and maybe listen to some good music to drown out the white noise. But two hours is still two hours, and in those one hundred and twenty minutes that he's spent out of the mansion and on this bus, he could have already watered the vegetables, checked if the fruits were already good for picking. Maybe even prepared some kimchi from the cabbage he and Yixing harvested last night, just before Joonmyun excused himself to freshen up and take a bath.

"I'll just be here, trying not to doze off," Yixing said, waving a hand over his shoulder without shifting his gaze from what he was sifting through. It was one of those pre-reads for the conference they were to attend today, in Seoul. He kept saying something about Joonmyun being the worst possible distraction when in fact it was the other way around – Yixing kept talking about the wonders of science and Joonmyun alternated between just marvelling at Yixing and actually listening to him while trying to sneak glances at his reading material. Still, they both stayed, hung around long enough to fall asleep on the couch, books forgotten on the floor and limbs tangled in the tiny space they shared.

Joonmyun laughs a little now and tries not to think about the face Sehun had given him when he woke up. "Just friends. _Right,_ " Sehun said, a corner of his lips curled up. He extended a hand in Joonmyun's direction, trying to help him get up, but Yixing tightened his hold on Joonmyun and wrapped his arms around Joonmyun's waist even move. "Breakfast in bed, then?"

"He'll wake up in a bit. We'll join you in the kitchen," Joonmyun whispered, careful not to wake Yixing up. Sehun nodded, took a deep, deep breath, then pulled away. "Heat some milk. He doesn't drink coffee in the morning."

Sehun chuckled, but didn't look over his shoulder. Instead, he held a thumbs-up in the air and waved, humming only when he was a good few feet away from where Joonmyun and Yixing were. Yixing drowned out that sound, as well, with his tiny noises, the hiccuped singing he muffled in Joonmyun's shirt as he buried his face in Joonmyun's chest. And then it kicked in – the wild thumping in Joonmyun's chest, the loud voices at the back of his head. That lone whimpering voice that was saying, what are you doing, Joonmyun? What do you want? _What do you really want to get out of this?_

"We're here," comes Yixing's soft voice, crawling up his nape and snapping Joonmyun out of his reverie. He blinks twice, then, turning to look at Yixing with wide eyes. "Slept well?"

Joonmyun nods, then drops his gaze to where Yixing's drumming a beat on his thigh. It's the music he's been listening to on loop for the past few days, weeks, _months,_ ever since he let Yixing in his house. It's almost like Yixing's never left, has carved himself a home there, right beside Joonmyun, maybe even on his skin in the weird, funny squiggles he doodles on Joonmyun's arm on a whim. Almost like Yixing has flushed out all the noise in Joonmyun's system and filled Joonmyun's senses with nothing but his own voice, instead.

The Gangnam area hasn't changed much from when Joonmyun last visited the area. That was four years ago, when he'd gathered all the things in his locker and dumped them in a box just big enough to fit a cab. The blocks still stretch far too wide and the are still buildings and shops left and right. People still follow traffic rules, crossing only when the pedestrian sign is a green and hastening in their steps so that they don't clog pathways. Some signages are already showing signs of wear and tear, but for the most part it seems as if Gangnam hasn't quite moved as fast as people thought it would. It's surprising, _startling,_ especially for someone like Joonmyun who has watched Gangnam pioneer movements and action. The people of Gangnam _are_ the forerunners of change, after all. Stop for a second and you'll get left behind. Gangnam is a rat race, in itself; the entirety of Seoul, a coliseum of competition.

"The last time I actually went around Gangnam was... a year ago," Yixing mutters beside him, his voice muffled by the noise around them. "Always just saw the district from the windows of the bus. Never felt the need to hop off because of this–" The walk from the terminal to COEX isn't too long, shouldn't take more than five minutes, but the thickening crowd around them makes it impossible to hustle. This is one of the changes, Joonmyun supposes – there are more people here now at this hour, almost making it impossible to go the other way without getting into trouble. "It's gotten worse, actually. I can't believe that's even possible."

"You should see Hongdae on a Friday night," Joonmyun replies, choking on his own words when he feels someone push him from behind. He doesn't risk a glance over his shoulder – he'll just be thrown off-course if he does – but he does grumble. "Hongdae on a Friday night _on Club Day,_ I mean. That's the only thing that can be worse than this."

"You don't seem like the type who'd fancy the Hongdae crowd, yeah."

"I used to like it when I was younger," Joonmyun answers. When he hears Yixing snort, he pinches Yixing in his side. " _Much_ younger."

"Like two decades ago or something?"

Close enough. He was still partying in the streets until he was thirty, trying to get himself drunk enough until he had the courage to talk to – Minseok? Yura? It depended on his mood. Minseok would always be his de facto mission during drinking nights, trying to get closer to his mentor and taking a stab at coaxing Minseok into taking that leap of faith from co-workers to friends, but Yura was an interesting person in her own right. She was pretty, intelligent, delivered the best jokes even when Joonmyun was sober. And Joonmyun was rarely sober back then. So Yura sort of kept him in check, became his harbor in the midst of the tempest. Whenever Joonmyun felt like he was slipping back into his state of drunkenness, both on alcohol and fatigue, he’d look to his side and find Yura there – as unwavering as the shore, but as moving as the sea.

He laughs to himself. That one was quicksand – the attraction was strong, but the bonds were feeble. Looking back, he was stupid to even think that Yura wasn’t trying hard enough to make the relationship work. She wasn’t the problem, and neither was he – it was the situation. She was fresh from a break-up with her long-time boyfriend; Joonmyun had always been on the short end of the pining stick, eyes fixed on no one else but Minseok when Minseok wouldn’t even look his way. The food at the feast was good; the drinks, even more. So they stuck together the entire night, up until the morning, tangled up in sheets neither of them knew who owned. Thought it would be okay to jump on the first train to a relationship that neither of them knew how to definite.

They had no plan. They didn’t even have a map. And that’s what happens to trips where you have no clear idea of the destination, right? You get lost for days on end until you somehow end up in a place familiar enough to take you home.

“More or less,” Joonmyun answers now, quickening his pace as he feels the crowd press more from behind. “Maybe I’ve been drinking since I was twelve, I don’t know,” he mutters, earning a laugh from Yixing, and he follows suit. Doesn’t push back the tickling sensation crawling up his throat and submits to the urge to cackle smack in the middle of Gangnam. Yixing leans back against his chest for the briefest of moments, like he can’t catch his breath anymore and has to just _stop for a moment,_ so Joonmyun takes it as an opportunity to rest one hand on the jut of Yixing’s hip bone. His free arm, he circles around Yixing’s waist. The fit of their bodies is a bit weird, too tight, but it keeps them both on their feet even with the crowd closing in on them.

Yixing risks a glance over his shoulder, just quick enough that Joonmyun sees nothing but a blur of colors, doesn't even get a glimpse of Yixing's expression. All he knows is that Yixing's muscles are tensing against his own where Yixing's back is pressed to his chest, that Yixing's steady breathing has picked up pace, turning into tiny hiccups that might as well be supressed gasps. The conference doesn't start until an hour after but Joonmyun doesn't stop walking, anyway, steers Yixing in the direction the crowd is headed to until they reach a sidewalk safe enough for them to take a break at.

"You alright?" Joonmyun asks, voice just barely above a whisper. It's almost the end of summer now, the gentle breeze of autumn blowing against their faces every so often, but the slide of their limbs against each other still feels sticky, still stings. Yixing offers only a small smile in response, a curt nod, but there's none of the familiar sparkle in his eyes. So Joonmyun waits for it, the shift in expression that Yixing does so well and in such a short period of time, as well. Waits for the punch line where Yixing pulls away without another word and just laughs at him silly because the best way to get out of a sticky situation is through bright, bright laughter. But it never comes. And Yixing just sort of stays there, skin burning against Joonmyun's own in the tight press of their bodies. He _does_ look to his side, though, like he can only look at Joonmyun out of the corner of his eyes. Like the sun is up too high behind and Joonmyun and _dammit,_ he can't blind himself like that. There are other ways to wound yourself. There are better things to do than to get oneself into trouble.

Five seconds, then Joonmyun drops his hands to his sides. Takes a step back, as well, to give Yixing room to breathe. He cracks his neck. "The entrance is this way," he says then turns on his heel to start walking in the right direction, but Yixing stops him. Wraps his fingers around Joonmyun wrist like a vice and pulls him just a bit closer, until they're arm to arm again, skin on skin, just a hitch of the breath away. "Yixing?"

Yixing parts his lips, poised to speak, but presses them to a thin line again when someone bumps him from behind. He twists his mouth to the side, the rest of his features pulling down to a frown. And then the magic kicks in, twists his expression into something more neutral, unfamiliar, a face Joonmyun hasn't seen before in all those hours that they've spent just studying each other's features, the gentle swell of Yixing's mouth, the shadows of his dimples. The way the corners of his lips curl up in the slowest, most languid manner ever, like his body is taking time to catch up with his faculties, teasing soft giggles out of Joonmyun in the process.

Yixing licks his lips, just a brief graze of the tongue along the skin, then takes a deep breath. "Do you... have anything planned tonight?" he asks after a while, worrying his bottom lip once the last syllable tumbles from his lips. "Catching up with friends you haven't seen in a while or something? Or will you be... visiting your parents?"

Joonmyun gulps hard. He'd mentioned to Minseok and Jongdae that he was going to attend the convention – _Like I have a choice :|,_ he even said in the email, to which Jongdae only replied with laughter and emojis. Minseok's helpful response was, _Are you sure you can stay out for too long? I mean, it's a three-day thing._ – but they hadn't really made arrangements for dinner or at least a quick catch up in one of the coffee shops nearby. It shouldn't be difficult to get a hold of them, but something about the way Yixing keeps nibbling on his bottom lip, the way Yixing shifts his gaze from Joonmyun's steady gaze to Joonmyun's lips and then back up, tells Joonmyun that he should be clearing his schedule, freeing up some time for the two of them to take full advantage of.

"I... have no relatives here anymore," Joonmyun answers, then, and breathes out through the narrow gap between his lips. "And I'm not sure if my friends even remember me. I haven't talked to them in–" Years. In forever. It's almost tragic. It's not as if Minseok and Jongdae had fallen short on trying to reach out; Joonmyun just prefers to be unavailable half the time. Everything that links back to Baekhyun just scars him all the more, wounds him deeper. And even with a certificate in the five-year recovery program under his belt, he isn't sure if he's ready to dive head-first into pain just yet. "–in a while, I bet they remember my email address more than they can recall my face," he continues, finishing with a laugh.

Yixing snorts. "Impossible. You have a memorable face."

And so do you, Joonmyun wants to say, but instead he scoffs, rolls his eyes. Looks anywhere, everywhere else but straight into Yixing's discerning gaze. Joonmyun hasn't seen eyes quite like Yixing's, or hasn't felt the same warmth being on the receiving end of someone else's smile. Not since Baekhyun, and even then there are so many ways in which they're different from each other. Where Baekhyun riles him up and challenges him, pushes him off the edge, Yixing reels him in with a small smile, makes him turn around and see things in another light. Where Baekhyun inspires change in him and makes him try new things, Yixing makes him face the mirror and look at the image staring at him on the other side, takes the normal in his hands and spices it up with a little something that Joonmyun hasn't seen before. Similar in a lot of ways, but with startling differences, from the way Baekhyun coaxes a giggle out of Joonmyun with a wink whereas Yixing surprises a sigh out of Joonmyun with the subtlest of smiles, to the way Baekhyun leans in to kiss while Yixing inches closer to stare.

Joonmyun laughs a little. "If what you're trying to say is that I look funny half the time then _fine,_ I have a memorable face," he groans, but the lilt in his voice gives him away. Makes Yixing loosen his grip on Joonmyun just a little but not quite enough to let go.

Joonmyun can shake Yixing off if he wants to. He should. People are beginning to stop in their tracks to stare, to furrow their eyebrows at them, to mutter words Joonmyun's glad he can't hear what with all the noise around them. And he's beginning to feel that weird, lurching sensation in his stomach again. He can't go to the conference with a troubled stomach. Still, he doesn't shake Yixing off just yet, just peeks at Yixing through his bangs and whispers, "We should get going."

Yixing nods, loosening his grip on Joonmyun even more. A few more seconds and _maybe_ he'll let go completely. Just maybe. Joonmyun can't tell yet. If he can just look up and straight into Yixing's eyes then he might just be able to read Yixing better. "So tonight–"

"I... don't have anything planned," Joonmyun mutters, looking away. Three quick breaths, then he turns to meet Yixing's gaze. "You?"

Yixing lifts his eyebrows, just a gentle bob that tugs on the rest of his features and pulls up the corners of his mouth. "No, not really," he replies, pausing only to lick his lips. "Though there _is_ this place in somewhere in Dangsan that I kinda want to check out. Should be less than an hour way by train?" Yixing lifts his hand, the one he's holding Joonmyun with, but drops it back to his side in favor of the other. Scores a line along the underside of his jaw with a nail, scratching marks on his skin. "Of course, that depends on the conference schedule–"

"The last session ends at eight. I thought your memory was _immaculate?_ " Joonmyun teases. He tugs on the link of their hands and starts walking, lets Yixing hold onto him a little longer as they walk the last few meters to the convention center. "Unless your cafe closes early? That would be a problem."

"It opens late," Yixing answers. He quickens his steps, catching up, then slides his hand further south before pulling away with an easy jerk of the hand. "And closes pretty late, as well. It's... a pub of sorts with live performances. I've never been there; Lu Han just mentioned liking the place a lot." He laughs then licks his lips again, catching his tongue between them this time before pulling back all the way. Like he's caught himself red-handed and he just wants to get swallowed up by the ground, melt into a puddle, _disappear._ Joonmyun shouldn't even be catching these things. "And by 'a lot', I mean he couldn't stop talking about it for weeks."

I trust his taste, Joonmyun wants to say, because he stuck with you. But he doesn't. Instead, he shrugs, brushes his knuckles against Yixing's own, and relishes the warmth of the collision, of the slow-forming smile on Yixing's lips, of the way their bodies align when Yixing slides his fingers between Joonmyun's own in a snug, snug fit.

☀

The worst thing about reunions is that they're never really _just reunions._ There's always an element of excitement in seeing an old crush in the flesh for the first time in years, an hint of fear in meeting the eyes of an enemy across the room. And then there's the suspense of locking gazes with a friend you haven't seen in years, someone whose touch you once craved but now cannot imagine making contact with.

"Thought I saw a ghost," Yura says as a greeting, when they bump into each other during lunch. A quick furrow of her eyebrows, then she stretches her arms wide open in Joonmyun's direction. "C'mere, champ, let me see if you're actually real–"

There's a faint crack in her voice, a tremble in the way her arms shake as she holds them up there for Joonmyun to wrap himself around in. Flashbacks to seven years ago when Joonmyun was drunk half the time and he just laughs at himself, at the way Yura cocks an eyebrow at him like she's challenging him, asking, look, Joonmyun, we've rehearsed this a hundred times and _this is the part where you give up._ Can't you remember what we've talked about? Do you want to run through the skit again? Do you _really_ know nothing else but to stand there like a bloke and _stare?_

Joonmyun looks around for an audience, to his right where Yixing is looking at him with a focused gaze, then back at Yura. "Are you sure your fiance won't mind if your ex hugs you after he broke your heart?" he asks, more to make the situation lighter than anything, but soon he feels something thick and dry lodge itself in his throat. _Traitorous,_ much like the thumping in his chest right now when he hears the sound of Yixing soft humming just a few inches away. "I wouldn't want to spark controversy or any issues–"

“What? There hasn't been– There’s _never been–_ " Yura shifts her gaze, looking to her side for the briefest of moments before looking up again. "Work's been keeping me up late and there's simply no time to _mingle_ with people outside the institute and–"

Yixing hiccups. Joonmyun catches it even when he has his body turned to Yura, even with only a quarter of his attention spread across everything that's happening around him – doctors of different specializations talking about all sorts of things, the servers changing trays on the buffet table. Yixing's shallow breathing just a few inches away, louder than the wild thumping in Joonmyun's chest at the moment. So Joonmyun takes a deep breath, wets his lips with a light lick, then answers, "Minseok-hyung's still available, though." He pauses only to let laughter seep in, then he's nodding, slow and deliberate, like he's trying to communicate through morse code, or body language, or a form of communication that only Yura can understand. They used to have a secret language, or at least that was what Jongdae said. _Can't understand what you two are talking about half the time,_ he'd confessed to Joonmyun way, way back, then let out a long sigh. _But I guess it works for the two of you so why the hell not, right?_ "You should've tried to ask him out while you had a chance. You know he's not the type to make the first move."

"I did, but he said he was far more interested in dying people than getting into a relationship," Yura replies, laughing a little. She saunters forward, then, giving Joonmyun a light slap on the arm and pulling him into her arms in accord. "I can _never_ get a straight answer from you, can't I? You haven't changed a bit."

I'd like to think that I have, Joonmyun wants to say, wants to _argue_. Those seven, eight years following their tragic break up? Those taught him more about life than he's ever learned about it in school. He hardly ever has alcohol these days anymore, downs two cups of coffee and some milk, instead. Throws in some cookies, as well, when he feels like it or when he knows that there's no use trying to deny Yixing the pleasure of reaching out to brush off crumbs from the corner of his lips. He doesn't lock himself up in a room anymore and think of the many things he's done wrong instead of the things he could have done right. He spends time outside now, strolling along some park he never knew was just within ten, fifteen meters of his mansion. He's _alive._ He's not that angsty teenager anymore; he's grown into someone more solid, grounded, mature. He _is_ Kim Joonmyun, not that man who used to go by a name in the labs because it made him feel like a superhero.

He doesn't need to feel like it anymore – he _is_ a hero. He doesn't need to save everyone's lives to make a difference; he's already made thousands of people well again after almost being eaten up alive by some weird condition. He's helped a family get through some tough losses and even tougher returns. So begone with the cape and the lab coat, really; he only needs his hands to work miracles. And maybe warm milk on the side, a reminder than even the best of superheroes take breaks from time to time.

"I have," Joonmyun answers after a while, murmuring the syllables into the press of his lips to Yura's hair. He doesn't need to lean back to get a good glimpse of Yura's face, the expression in her features that gives her away. He's spent years studying Yura's features that it's almost impossible for him to not exactly how know Yura will tackle certain situations she's faced with: surprise is always met with wide eyes; disbelief, with a faint gasp. Acceptance, with a quick nod of the head. Right now Yura is widening her eyes, lips falling open into a tiny 'o'. She doesn't say anything, though, doesn't even utter a word when Joonmyun laughs a little. "It's just taking a while to show. But trust me, I'm not the same guy you used to know."

"I sure hope so," she whispers in Joonmyun's ear, then pulls away with an easy smile. Joonmyun lets his eyes linger on Yura's features a little longer, takes in every hidden quirk in her features that he's seeing, figuring out for the first time. When he doesn't feel his stomach lurch, he takes another step back, away from Yura and closer to his side where Yixing is. “A… friend of yours?"

Joonmyun shifts his gaze to Yixing, catching his bottom lip between his teeth when their eyes meet. Yixing's smiling, but there's none of the classic glimmer in his eyes or the trademark peculiar curl at the corners of his lips. This one looks practiced, rehearsed. Distant, but not any less Yixing. Joonmyun has seen this before, those few times when Yixing would show up at his doorstep at ten in the evening, drained but still eager to talk. Half of Yixing's mind would be elsewhere, but he still kept his eyes on Joonmyun like the illusion that he was in that moment was enough to pull him out of that pit of fatigue. And most of the time it would take only a gentle squeeze of the arm and warm milk to coax Yixing to break down his own walls, put down the shield. To remove the mask that doesn't even fit his face.

So Joonmyun lets his eyes linger, blinks a few times and waits – for the tension in Yixing's muscle to lift, for the tight corners of his mouth ease into something more relaxed, more natural again. For a word, a sign, for _anything_ from Yixing, at least a hint of how he should be answering that question. Because if Joonmyun was drunk with whiskey and not with the warm winds summer brought then he'd have answered Yura's question without thinking twice: he's a friend of mine, a very good friend. He got me out of that five-year-long rut I was in. He saved me. Except friends don't usually think of kissing each other so maybe, just maybe, I should reconsider, think of what I really want. And ask Yixing if he wants the exact same thing.

Yixing laughs a little. It flicks something on inside Joonmyun, like a switch or a button that's long been begging to be pushed. Joonmyun faces Yura, then, stuffing his hands in his pockets but inching closer to Yixing until their elbows brush. "A very good friend. Different field of practice, though, but he–" Works well with his hands, can heal people just by talking to them – Joonmyun can go on all day. He doesn't. Instead, he drops his voice to a hum, surfacing to continue, "–he writes good journals and analyses on behavioral sciences. Provides good insight on other things, as well."

"And I bake really yummy cookies. He always forgets to mention that," Yixing adds, chuckling. Yura widens her eyes in response, turns to look at Joonmyun and purses her lips into a small smile. Her lips tremble a little, but this one isn't fear or apprehension – this is Yura trying not to laugh, trying to fight even the chuckle knocking at the back of her teeth. And there are words there, as well, that she isn't sure if she should be dropping like ticking time bombs, each of them just as explosive as the previous. "I mean, he eats the cookies on a daily basis so you'd _at least_ expect the taste and flavor to stick with him. But _no–_ "

"He doesn't know how to talk sometimes," Yura comments, humming. "Strange, because he's the best speaker the institute has had in years."

Joonmyun juts out his bottom lip. Beside him, he hears Yixing laugh a little. "Just years?"

" _Decades,_ then," Yura amends. "Or a century, whatever makes you happy."

Very few things make him happy, Joonmyun muses – long baths, harvesting fresh basil, Sehun's french toast, playing Monopoly with Sehun every Sunday, eight in the evening. Quiet nights spent sitting beside Yixing, sometimes reading research material for their journals or talking about anything under the sun, alternating between drinking coffee and sipping warm milk with Yixing opposite him. Seeing a smidgen of milk flaunted on a corner of Yixing's mouth and wanting to reach out to touch, but Yixing brushing it off before Joonmyun can even throw his hands in the air and say _what the hell, who cares, I'm going for it._ Being saved from the trouble of trying to brush off the feeling of Yixing smiling against his skin and not being haunted by that crippling sensation for days on end.

"I think he knows how to talk," Yixing says, the lilt in his voice softening the cracks when he gets to the last syllable. Yixing sounds like a teenager who's going through puberty at forty; it's hilarious. The way Joonmyun's heart jumps when Yixing slides even closer, resting a warm hand on the small of his back, even more. "Just that he's too afraid to word things wrongly for fear of getting misinterpreted."

Yura cocks an eyebrow at Yixing, then turns to Joonmyun with a wicked grin. "Who is he? He's a pretty interesting person," she says, giggles bubbling between her words. She purses her lips, mouth twisting to the side. "I really, really like him."

You _can't_ like him, a voice at the back of his mind says, screams. Don't come too close, don't touch him. _I found him first._ Joonmyun's stomach lurches. He can feel his eyebrow twitching on impulse, can feel the pulse in his palms and the back of his ears quicken. And he can feel his lips wanting to move on their own starting with a mild tremble, sputter words he'll probably regret if he doesn't bite the inside of his cheek hard enough to bruise. So he takes a deep breath, doesn't flinch when Yixing snakes his hand around his waist, doesn't pull shiver when he feels the burst of heat pressed to his side in the tight fit of their bodies. "Zhang Yixing."

" _In the flesh,_ " comes a familiar voice from a few feet away. Joonmyun takes a sharp breath, then turns to his side, looking in the direction of the source. His stomach is still turning, but he can't feel that ripping sensation anymore. He can breathe a bit better now, even more with Yixing rubbing small circles in his side, enough that he can summon a smile when he sees Jongdae waving his arms about and Minseok welcoming him with wide eyes, lifted eyebrows, an amused smile.

"Well, if it isn't the prodigal son," Minseok whispers, reaching out to thread his fingers in Joonmyun's hair. Joonmyun shivers at the first contact but, soon, he's leaning in, melting into Minseok's familiar touch. "Did you drive out by yourself? Still know how to ask for directions?"

"My car's still manual. Sehun's the one who uses that," Joonmyun mumbles. Minseok slides his hand lower, grazing the pads of his fingers along the curve of Joonmyun's cheek before giving it a light pinch. It almost feels like ten, twelve years ago again when all Joonmyun wanted was for Minseok to stop in his tracks for _just one second_ and hear him out, listen to his findings about a particular disease and how to cure it. For Minseok to look at him for longer than five seconds and give him more than just a passing glance. Joonmyun shivers now, but only a little – half of him's still caught up in that messy tangle of familiarity, in the warmth of Minseok's touch, the weight of Yixing's stare– "I... went here with a friend," he rushes, then, blinking a few times to refocus and cocking his head to his side. "Zhang Yixing. I'm sure you all know him for his contribution to our growing pool of research."

Minseok takes a step back, giving Joonmyun's chin a light pinch before holding his other hand out in Yixing's direction. "I don't think anyone has written as many journals as you have, doctor," Minseok says, addressing Yixing with a curt bow. "Kim Minseok, Dr. Zhang. It's always a pleasure to met one of the best in the field."

"Also, one of the best cookie-makers, apparently, since our Dr. Kim here loves Dr. Zhang's cookies," Yura adds. She bows in Yixing's direction, as well, holding out one hand in a handshake while clasping the other on Minseok's shoulder. "Park Yura. I'm... one of his people," she says, cocking her head in Minseok's direction. "And for the sake of this conversation, let's drop the honorifics. There are three Kim's here; we're bound to mix things up at one point."

"You haven't even gotten to the best Kim yet," Jongdae mumbles from beside Yura, then takes a step forward to introduce himself to Yixing. "Glad you could get hyung out of his cave. It's been _years_ since we've seen each other. I can't even remember if we said goodbye the last time we met."

There were a lot of hugs and suppressed tears then, Joonmyun wants to answer. Gross crying faces. Minseok wouldn't let Joonmyun live that one down. Jongdae wasn't around for the last wave of farewells but Minseok was there to send him off, was even the one who helped Joonmyun bring down all of the boxes from the labs and shuffle them inside the cab. "Don't punish yourself," Joonmyun recalls Minseok telling him back then, halfway out of the cab and into the harsh summer weather outside. "You don't have to do this, Joonmyun. You– You don't have to stop practicing medicine _forever–_ "

"I don't think I can have someone die by my own hands again, hyung," Joonmyun replied, breathing out in a huff. "And Baekhyun's probably just... wandering the streets of Seoul. I don't know what I'll do if we spot each other somewhere and he decides to run away from me."

"Win him back, I suppose?"

Joonmyun scoffed. "It's not that easy, hyung. His subconscious is telling him to keep me out of his life because technically, I _invaded_ his body by infusing him with my–" He let out a long and loud sigh, lips trembling somewhere towards the end. "We've been through this _a thousand times,_ hyung. We've checked every possible solution to help him get back his memories but it's _not going to happen._ "

He took a deep, deep breath, shutting his eyes at the sound of Minseok's low grunt. "He's _never_ coming back. And I have to live with that. I have to learn to live without him."

Joonmyun laughs to himself now and digs his hands in his pockets. "Well, we're stuck here for the next three days. There won't be goodbyes anytime soon," he says. He takes a deep breath and looks around, cataloguing the new expressions he sees on his friends' faces – the relaxed smile on Minseok's lips, the hint of surprise and amusement in the way Jongdae nods, curls up the corners of his lips until the smile reaches his eyes. The way Yura holds Joonmyun's gaze as she gives Minseok's shoulder a tight squeeze, and the way Yixing is looking at him with the neutral, almost vacant expression like he doesn't have a knee-jerk response to this situation yet.

"The food's getting cold," Minseok says, breaking the spell. He shifts his gaze to Yura's hand on his arm, then looks back at Joonmyun with a focused gaze. "Do you two have a table already? You can join us, if you want?"

Joonmyun parts his lips to speak, ready to say that yes, they do, it's the one just behind them and really, it would be _great_ if Minseok and the others gave him time to breathe, but Yixing leans in to whisper, "Go, join them. It's been a while since you guys–" Yixing laughs, hot breath tickling the slope of Joonmyun's neck. He just _wants_ to lean in and close his eyes. He wants to _rest._ But then Yixing's shaking his head, saying, "Fuck reunions, really."

Joonmyun sucks in his bottom lip and risks a glance at Yixing, looking up at the latter before dropping his gaze to the gentle swell of Yixing's lips. "I can't tell them that."

"You can," Yixing answers, laughter still bubbling on his lips. "But it'll be rude. So let's just... join them for lunch. But promise me you'll be mine tonight."

He probably means, promise me will still go to that live cafe tonight because no one else will go with me and Lu Han's still in China, but Joonmyun's breath still hitches at Yixing's words, at the way Yixing's lips brush against his skin in the softest, softest graze. He can see see Yura's shoulders lifting, can see Jongdae's eyes widening and maybe there are a couple more people looking at them silly and asking, _what the hell?_ What are these two doing? What do they want? But Joonmyun doesn't care right now. All that matters is the way Yixing's warmth seeps into his skin, wraps around him like a quit and stills the twisting of his stomach, only to make it lurch again.

It's a different, good kind of lurch, though. The kind that makes him suck in his bottom lip in an attempt to hold back the grin surfacing to his lips. 

"I think someone took our seats already," Joonmyun answers after a while. Yixing steps to his side, pulling away, but keeps a hand on the small of Joonmyun's back as he ushers Joonmyun forward, _closer_ to his friends. "Are you sure we can sit with you three?"

Minseok cocks an eyebrow at Joonmyun but maintains the smile on his lips. "Shouldn't be a problem," he replies, then tilts his head to the left. "This way. Pretty sure nobody would want to steal our seats. I'd like to see them try."

"Wow, hyung," Joonmyun mutters, catching up with the rest of the group. Yixing follows closely behind, slipping right beside Joonmyun when Yura quickens her pace to talk with Jongdae. "Didn't know you had it in you to be... feisty."

"And I always knew you had it in you to be happy again," Minseok says. He nudges Joonmyun in his side, then pulls away with an easy smile. "Took a while, but at least you're there already."

Not yet, he wants to say, _I still have a long way to go,_ but his stomach grumbles and he can taste the sickening mix of acid and metal crawl up his throat. So instead, he just shrugs, holds his hand out in Yixing's direction until he feels the slide of their arms, until he can hold onto the hem of Yixing's sleeve and tug Yixing closer.

Yixing's warmth is a force keeping him on his feet, keeping him from running away. So he stays close, lets Yixing reel him in, and stays there long enough to feel Yixing link their ankles under the table like a habit he just can't wean himself off of.

☀

"Pretty sure you've already grown out of your stalker mode so this is probably fate at work," comes a familiar voice from a few feet away. Joonmyun looks over his shoulder, shifting a little so he can see the newcomer better, then laughs. "I thought you already quit?"

Joonmyun shifts in his position, turning around so he can face Minseok now. He holds up both arms – in defense or in surrender, it can go either way. He can easily snatch a stick from Minseok or ask for just one puff, but he's long quit smoking. It's been four years since. He's never felt the need to take a long drag since the day he handed his last pack to a stranger in the streets. From time to time he'd wonder how things would have been if events unfolded differently, if he hadn't screwed up that operation on Baekhyun and didn't have to take Sehun in, but never has he felt the desire to head to the nearest convenience store for a quick smoke.

_I'm not the same guy you used to know,_ he hears his own voice mutter at the very back of his head. He laughs a little. Change is slow to come, especially to someone as closed-off as him, but at least he's getting there. Maybe when he's already fifty, he'll be rid of all his apprehensions and fears. He only has to wait for seven more years; it shouldn't feel too long.

"Wanna share a stick? For old time's sake?" Minseok asks as he saunters closer, stopping only when he finds a comfortable position beside Joonmyun. Joonmyun shakes his head, digs his hands in his pockets, then leans against the railing, lifting his head to the evening sky and taking a deep breath. Takes a step away from Minseok, as well, because even with autumn slowly creeping in through the cool and dry winds, there's still the dregs of summer sticking to their skin. It's disgusting. "Wow. You really _have_ changed. If I asked you the same question years ago then you probably would have–"

–considered taking Minseok up on the offer, most likely. It might be the only time that he and Minseok will ever be more than just co-workers, share a touch more intimate than that of two people moving around the same space. But in the sliver of time between losing himself to Yura and losing all hope of ever making Minseok look his way, he'd found something new to pour all of his attention to, a special project that involved lots of mysteries and just the right amount of magic. Baekhyun, lying on the operating table, sort of saved his life even before Joonmyun could save his. He doesn't even have training in that department.

"We've all changed. You look more toned now. And I think Jongdae's grown taller," Joonmyun replies. He risks a glance at Minseok, glossing his gaze on Minseok's figure before tucking in his chin. The wind blows in his direction, though, carries with it the smoke that Minseok had breathed out just a few minutes ago. Stuffs the thick scent up his nostrils until he's alternating between coughing and clearing his throat. "And Yura looks much, much better now. You... haven't been driving her crazy anymore?"

Minseok looks to his side, cocking an eyebrow at Joonmyun before looking away. He guides Joonmyun to the other side when the wind blows a second time, then, trying to fight the gusts and not have Joonmyun inhaling the smoke he's blowing out into open air. "If you're hoping for a different kind of answer then sorry, you're not getting it," Minseok mutters, a stick balanced between his lips, then fishes for something in his pocket with one hand. "How was the trip, by the way? No hiccups, I hope?"

Joonmyun laughs a little. "Don't change the subject, hyung."

"Show respect, kiddo," Minseok counters, sticking out his tongue before running his fingers through Joonmyun's hair. "But really, how are you? Feeling... alright? No weird aches or anything?"

Joonmyun feels a strange, funny shiver crawl up his nape at the same time that Minseok slides his hand down to rest it on the base of his nape. _Familiarity –_ there it is again, striking while Joonmyun is weak in all the right places, hitting hard now that Joonmyun's defenses are down and Minseok has all of his cards up. It's the same thing that makes it difficult to just throw away certain junk from the past, no matter how useless they may be. He still knows Minseok's favorite artists by heart, still knows the brand of cigarette that Minseok smokes. Still knows exactly how Minseok likes his coffee – an iced triple tall Americano on the rocks or with very, _very_ little water. Two pumps of hazelnut syrup on top to help temper the bitter taste without losing the rich flavor. Still knows submit to lean into Minseok's touch without scaring Minseok off – lean in with just a gentle tilt of the head in the direction of his hand, then pull away at the very next second.

Minseok drops his hand to his side, then blows out another stream of smoke. "You still look whole, for the most part, so I guess you're fine," he whispers. A heartbeat, then he taps on his own collarbone, then draws the lone finger down to the jut of his shoulder. "How's your... chest?"

"I've been taking pills just to be safe," Joonmyun answers now, back in the moment and on his feet. He can still feel the burn of Minseok's touch on his scalp, but for the most part nothing aches anymore. "I actually made more of the ones we had before. Milder composition this time, since the shock dealt to my body isn't as bad as that of Baek–" He laughs a little, blows air onto his bangs in an effort to ruffle them. Years after and the memory of Baekhyun waking up without any recognition of anyone, whatsoever, still haunts Joonmyun, follows him around like a fever he can't wean himself out of. It sounds stupid, feels even sillier. He's forty-three, a victim of choice and circumstance. He shouldn't be falling back into that bottomless pit Yixing has already pulled him out off.

Almost. _Almost there,_ he tells himself, then shakes his head. "Right, as I was saying... I've been taking pills so should there be any... I don't know, side effects to being exposed to the normal human surroundings again, the meds should slow them down."

"You... look more alive, though," Minseok mentions. Nudges him in his side, as well, as he offers Joonmyun a small smile. "Who do I blame for this? The cute kid you were with earlier?"

"Cute kid, hyung? _Cute kid?_ " Joonmyun echoes, drawling the syllables. "Since when did you start calling people 'cute'? You met him _just this afternoon_ and now you're calling him–"

"Jealous?" Minseok asks, snorting. He wiggles his eyebrows for a bit, until the warm summer breeze blows against his face and makes smoke stick to his skin. He grimaces. "I mean, he _is_ very attractive. He's an accomplished man. He's... quite the charmer, I'd say." One last drag of the cigarette, then he presses the butt of the stick to the concrete just beside him. "What's not to like?"

Joonmyun sucks in his bottom lip. Part of him wants to ask, since when have you found guys cute, hyung? You said before, back when I was still an intern, that you'd never swing that way so _I though–_ But it's useless. Even with the temptation of Yura hanging around them like a looming feeling, if something was supposed to happen between them then it would have. All Minseok had to do was to pull Joonmyun close whenever he threaded his fingers through Joonmyun's hair, tilt Joonmyun's chin up, press a kiss to his lips. And if Joonmyun felt like he could ask for more then he'd try to pry Minseok's lips with the gentle coax of his tongue. All they had to do was _do something;_ the rest would follow.

But Minseok maintained that no, he had no time for boys, and neither did he have time for girls. He'd been in a relationship with his work with the longest time and it was quite the healthy dynamic so why fix what wasn't broken? Why change things? Why screw things up? So Joonmyun let it go, looked the other way. Saw Yura drinking at the bar and joined her there for a nice, long conversation about elusive opportunities and 'how fucked up life was'.

And then there's a voice – there are _voices_ at the back of his mind, the same group of voices that were harping on him earlier when he'd first seen Yura after a long, long time, screaming at him in a voice so deafening, all of them saying the same thing: don't fall in love with him. I saw him first. You've taken away hope from me before; don't deny me this one, _please–_

"Well, he is," Joonmyun whispers, exhaling noisily through his nose. Beside him, Minseok chuckles, slots his lighter in the box along with the sticks, then slips the pack in his back pocket. Joonmyun slaps his hand at that, mumbling, " _Stop that._ Unless you want your ass to get burnt–"

"I know, I know," Minseok groans, then slips the pack in the pocket of his jacket, instead. "Years later and you're still concerned about my ass–"

"Why wasn't it me, hyung?" Joonmyun breathes out. He presses his lips together and keeps his eyes on the ground, watching the wind lift the dust below. From a corner of his eye, he can see Minseok risking a glance at him, can see the way Minseok furrows his eyebrows and parts his lips like he _wants_ to explain. "I used to think that I didn't stand a chance because, well, you liked girls. There was news about you and Boa-seonbaenim going out for a time and I thought, hey, that's actually perfect! Two of my best mentors going steady and maybe getting it on–" His voice trails off into light laughter, and then he's choking on his own spit, throat tightening around nothing in particular. Or maybe around the words that he keeps pushing down his throat because they only have ten minutes left. And ten minutes aren't enough to ask clarity on a lifetime of regrets. "You could've turned me down."

Minseok laughs a little. His voice cracks, though, somewhere between the first few slivers of laughter and the bright, shrill tone. Joonmyun looks to his side, then, meeting Minseok's eyes once and for all, tilting his head to the side. From where he is, with the little space between them, he can make out the way Minseok's cheeks tremble, the way Minseok keeps parting his lips then pressing them together _and then_ parting them again. The way Minseok keeps breathing out words that he should be saying, instead. So Joonmyun nudges him with his foot, mumbles, "I can take it. I'm a big boy now. _Hit me._ "

"This isn't supposed to be about me, Joonmyun. Stop changing the subject," Minseok says, chuckling between words. But the smile on his lips wanes when Joonmyun lifts an eyebrow, when Joonmyun kicks him in the ankle for another time. "One question, one answer. Deal?"

Joonmyun scoffs. Trust Minseok to lay down the rules before diving into something, head first. He nods, just a slight jerk of the head, then mumbles, "Yeah, sure, whatever floats your boat."

"Ask me again," Minseok says this time, shifting in his position so that he's facing Joonmyun. "Come on, Joonmyunnie – do it."

Joonmyun takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. If he wishes hard enough then maybe that happy ending from a decade ago can happen now, the ending where Minseok cups his cheeks in his hands and kisses him hard enough that he won't be able to feel his lips anymore when they pull apart. But that's an age-old dream, and Joonmyun's all grown up now. He's not the same twenty, thirty-something who wanted nothing but his idol to look at him in a different light. So he curls in his fingers, licks his lips before asking, "Why only now, hyung? Why only now when you could told me before that–"

"Realization always takes longer to sink in as you get older," Minseok answers. He laughs a little, low and rough. Like the beginnings of a sore throat are making themselves felt in the hollow cavity of Minseok's throat. "Why are you asking now?"

"Because I couldn't get a straight answer from you before? I had to... get my answers elsewhere." Joonmyun looks away, to where the door is, to where Minseok could have gone back down if he wanted to avoid trouble in the first place. "Why didn't you do anything about it, then?"

Minseok cackles this time, shrill and bright. Thundering. It makes Joonmyun shiver, a familiar heat crawling up his nape and making his body shake all over. "It was never going to work out, Joonmyun. You were... badly beaten up then. I wasn't in the best of conditions, either. It was a disaster waiting to happen." He snorts, shakes his head. Heaves a sigh as he slumps against the railing again. His shoulders are hunched and the corners of his lips are pulled down. In this light, with the harsh summer sun shining down on them, Minseok looks much older, the dark circles under his eyes showing even more when shadows catches on his skin. Hardened by experience and trials, but so much older than he should be. He looks nothing like the old Minseok Joonmyun knew, the same doctor he'd looked up to his entire life. Whenever he felt like giving up, he'd just look at Minseok and think, if I work just a bit harder. I can be like him. I can be _better._ But right now, he wants nothing more than to tuck Minseok in bed and sing him lullabies until he finally falls asleep. "So I did both of us a favor, really."

"You really have to justify the slow realization, don't you?"

Minseok shrugs. "I fight for what I think is right. And I believe that I saved us from ourselves."

Joonmyun hovers. He leans in a bit, more to see Minseok better than anything else, and pulls away only when he feels the faint scent of smoke in Minseok's breath. Suddenly, he's twenty-five again, back in his scrubs and the lab coat that makes him feel more like a superhero than a doctor. And he's waiting for Minseok's next move again – does he ask for the patient's vital signs? An assessment of the condition, then a diagnosis? Does he ask Joonmyun to scrub in with him and save a life? Joonmyun can't tell. Minseok's wearing that vacant expression again that tells Joonmyun both nothing and everything he has to know.

"So, that guy – Yixing," Minseok begins, then looks up to meet Joonmyun's gaze. "How are you planning to tell him?"

Tell him _what,_ Joonmyun wants to ask. Tell him about his bitter past with Baekhyun? His fascination with Minseok? That short run with Yura? And what could have been troublesome feelings for Sehun? Yixing already knows those. Yixing catches him off-guard from time to time and drops questions like he's just dropped a pen, _sorry, mind if you got that for me and told me how you hooked up with that pretty co-worker of yours? How about the guy you had the biggest crush on? Did you like the cookies I baked?_ Yixing has a way of coaxing secrets out of Joonmyun, things he probably wouldn't tell any other person he met at a convenience store or bumped into on his way home. Yixing makes him feel like it's okay to share, to talk, to not listen for once and do the speaking, instead.

Joonmyun stares at his hands and studies the lines on his palm, laughs a little when he sees a bright red mark along the side of his left hand. That one is a product of one of their gardening mishaps. Joonmyun couldn't pull out the cabbage with a light tug so he had to shovel the ground even deeper just to pull it out. He ended up slashing his skin with the sharp side of the shovel; Yixing ended up dropping the basket of cabbages to the ground and rushing to where Joonmyun was, raising Joonmyun's hand to help stop the bleeding.

"Be more careful next time. I won't be around all the time to make sure you don't harm yourself," Yixing had said then. He applied ointment on Joonmyun's scarred hand, then looked up at Joonmyun through the slits of his bangs. "Though it's nice to take care of someone from time to time," he added, voice barely above a whisper, then sucked in his bottom lip. "It doesn't feel like a chore at all, especially when I'm taking care of you."

Joonmyun chest tightens, throat constricting around nothing in particular. He coughs, strikes his chest, tries to breathe easily again, but his throat is too dry and his chest feels so full. Like if Minseok asked one more time, _are you okay?_ , he might just burst and utter words he never thought he'd be able to say.

"There's... nothing to say," Joonmyun replies when his throat clears. Minseok cocks an eyebrow at him, mouth twisted and poised to come up with a retort but lips still pressed together. " _Shut up,_ hyung. We're just friends. I don't have to tell him anything."

"Come on, Joonmyun, it doesn't take a genius–"

"–to know that I'm way past that stage, romance and all that," Joonmyun finishes. "I lost Baekhyun because I was foolish and let my feelings get the better of me when I had to be _his doctor_ and not his man. And I can't let that happen again. Besides, after what happened, I don't think a fuck up like me deserves to find... something as special as that."

"That's bullshit," Minseok mutters.

"And that's not a question," Joonmyun counters. He casts a glance at his wrist watch. Two more minutes to play around. Two more minutes until he can breathe again. "And we should probably be heading back. It's almost time."

Minseok pushes himself off the railing and dusts off his clothes. There are still flecks of ash on his coat, so Joonmyun leans in in stimulus, dusts off the ashes with a flick of the fingers. Pulls away, taking two, three steps back before looking up so that he won't get himself into trouble even more with a gesture as innocent as trying to catch a glimpse of Minseok's face with only three inches of breathing space between them. Minseok only chuckles in response, shakes his head, licks his lips like he's still gathering all of his thoughts stringing and restringing them so they'd sound better, more polished, _professional._ Soon, Minseok's reaching out to ruffle Joonmyun's hair, to drag his hand down while Joonmyun's still caught in the tangle of the strands and the sweet, comforting sensation of Minseok surrendering to him for the last time–

"Just... speak up. Tell him whatever you have to tell him." Minseok gulps hard, then pulls up the corners of his mouth in a small smile. "Maybe then you'll finally be able to sort out your emotions and come across a realization."

Joonmyun snorts. "Realization always takes longer to sink in when you're much, much older," he counters, then steps to his side when Minseok motions to pinch him. "What? I was just quoting a wise man–"

"You got the delivery wrong. It needs to... come from the heart more," Minseok reasons. "You have to _feel it–_ "

"Whatever, hyung, I'm leaving you here."

Minseok chuckles. "Mhmm, because your boyfriend's probably waiting for you downstairs," he calls out. "Bumped into him on the way here–"

Joonmyun stops in his tracks, looking over his shoulder to address Minseok. He's still stuck somewhere between Minseok's bright laughter and the magic word for 'boyfriend' ringing in his ears, crawling up his nape, wrapping around him like a nice, warm quilt. "What?"

Minseok shakes his head, the corners of his lips pulling up in accord. "You're hopeless," he mutters, then snakes an arm around Joonmyun as they make their way down the stairs. "You are _hopeless,_ Kim Joonmyun."

The session ends just a few minutes shy of nine in the evening. He and Yixing still take the first train to Dangsan, though, sitting beside each other in companionable silence. Halfway through the trip, Yixing drifts off, head bobbing in different directions, so Joonmyun slides his hand across Yixing's back, then up until he can rest his palm against the side of Yixing's head so he can guide Yixing to a more comfortable position. Yixing mumbles something against Joonmyun's hair, something that sounds a lot like _hungry and tired and I just really want to curl up with–_ He never gets to finish, the rest of his words muffled in the press of his lips to Joonmyun's hair, the thinning distance between them, Joonmyun's skin. Joonmyun hums, then, singing a familiar song under his breath until he feels the weight of Yixing's head grow heavier on his shoulder. Until he feels a wave of exhaustion wash over him, coaxing him to close his eyes and just surrender to Yixing's warmth pressed to his side.

When he rouses from his slumber, they're already at Dangsan and Yixing's giving his hand a light squeeze. "This is our stop," Yixing whispers, voice so soft he could have just been breathing, so instead Joonmyun reads the message through the movement of Yixing's lips, the way they curl up at the corners, the heavy thumping of Yixing's pulse against his skin in the link of their fingers. The fit of their bodies that feels _just right,_ and the way they align.

☀

Autumn finally settles in, bringing with it the cool, dry winds that lift summer off the ground. The nights feel much longer, but the four, five hours Yixing spends in Joonmyun's house at least thrice a week still feels too short for conversations that stretch into and past midnight. The days aren't getting any longer, either – there's still so much to do, so much to accomplish. Joonmyun has two journals due three days from now, both of them 'urgent projects' that he's just received an analysis request for two days ago. And then there’s more research to be done for projects that don’t even exist yet because science evolves everyday, every minute, every breathing moment. If Joonmyun stops reading in favor of just leaning back into Yixing’s arms, then he’ll have trouble catching up.

Then there’s the kimchi jjigae he started cooking earlier that’s supposed to have come to a boil by now, the rice that should have been ready five minutes ago. The fact that he was supposed to be all made up for today's appointment in fifteen minutes, tops, but is still deciding on what to wear now. With the change in seasons comes a change in his de facto outfit. He can’t just go around in his the threadbare longsleeves anymore – Yixing will kick him in the balls then usher him back to the room to help him look for a change of clothes if he does.

"Don't get me wrong: I love how you look in white shirts," Yixing mentioned one time, both of his hands warm and heavy on Joonmyun's shoulders. He drummed his fingers on Joonmyun's skin, his thumbs pressing down on Joonmyun's collarbones. If Joonmyun didn't know better then he'd say Yixing was just trying to pull down his collar even more, splay his fingers all over Joonmyun's skin. But Joonmyun did know better, and he knew better than to feed himself with foolish fantasies at such a late hour. "But we're going out and meeting Lu Han and it's just–"

_We're going out–_ Joonmyun gulps hard now and takes a sharp breath. It feels like cutting his nose open from the inside and flushing oxygen in his system to choke down the words knocking at the back of his teeth instead of helping him breathe. It almost feels so weird, _juvenile,_ the way his stomach lurches at the very thought. Like he's twenty-five again and he's crushing on this doctor in the behavioral sciences department, not his attending. He isn't. He's forty-three and he's too old to be feeling the rush that going out with someone in whatever context Yixing wants it to be.

He pulls his shirt over his head, tossing it to the bin of used clothes just a few feet away. He can see his reflection in the mirror, parts of him whole and the other parts hollowed out. He can still feel and see every part of him from the waist down, but more and more his torso’s beginning to look as if it's been dotted with patches of translucent film. A huge portion of the right side of his chest has hollowed out, with only the moles tracing the path where his shoulder is supposed to be. And his waist, the whole diameter of it, looks more like a silver band now than the expanse of flesh that it used to be.

"Are you alright?" he remembers Yixing asking him one time, grazing the pads of his fingers along the curve of his cheek. Yixing tilted Joonmyun's head from side to side, like he was looking for scratches, dents, imperfections that he couldn't see at first glance. Joonmyun wanted to laugh then – they were too easy to see. All Yixing had to do was to look Joonmyun in the eye and all the scars would come popping out, glaring at him in big, bold characters. “You’ve been… looking paler recently. Do you need to rework your schedule or something? Earlier sleeping time?"

Joonmyun remembers scoffing and shaking his head. “I’m good,” he’d said then, lying. “I guess it’s just old age at work.” And then, in a blind leap of faith, he slipped his fingers between Yixing’s own and gave Yixing’s hand a light squeeze. It wasn’t anything big, just a gentle brush of the thumb to the back of Yixing’s hand and the slide of his palm against Yixing’s skin, sticky and warm, but Yixing breathed out, low and shaky, like it was the exact thing he needed that moment, the very pillar of support he was hoping to hold onto or lean against for balance.

"I can't believe you're taking this long. Are you even awake–" comes a voice now from the other side of the door. Light rapping on the surface then the knob twists, and the next thing Joonmyun knows Sehun's popping his head in his room, furrowing his eyebrows as soon as he catches sight of Joonmyun a few feet away. "H...yung. Are you– Are you sure you can go out in this condition?"

Joonmyun takes a better look at himself, dropping his gaze to where his waist is supposed to be. I'm better now, he wants to tell Sehun, because it's true – three days ago, when he'd returned from a quick library trip to the city center with Yixing, he was beginning to go translucent from the hips down to the base of his pelvis. The pads of his fingers were growing paler, _lighter._ He wasn't losing hair, but he was fast losing color in his system. Yixing had commented about Joonmyun being paler than the usual then, "Maybe we should go home. You don't look too well–" But Joonmyun insisted that they stay, look around in the hope that they could find more useful books, hide behind shelves so Joonmyun could just rest against the books and fix his clothes even before Yixing could see that his wrists weren't just pale – they were already half-translucent.

He still has his eyes, nose, ears, his senses, though. None of it has gone haywire yet, unlike most cases where humans who had contracted the disease went from normal and visible to translucent turning _invisible_ in a blink of an eye. So he's good. He's still breathing like any person would. He's alive. And he won't allow his condition to ruin Yixing's plans of heading out to see the Hanji Festival in the city center.

"Nothing serious. It's just... flu for the skin or something. _Normal,_ " he reasons in response, then, and reaches for his white shirt from his bed. Sehun beats him to it, though, yanking the shirt away and pulling it close to his chest before Joonmyun can even attempt to put it back on. Sehun scrunches his face, puts up a fight, but Joonmyun hasn't spent years living with Sehun to not know how to coax Sehun into submission. All he needs to do is to reach out, wrap a hand around Sehun's wrist. Pull him close until Sehun stops flailing around and starts _listening._ Hum in his ear until the music crawls up Sehun's spine and makes him relax, makes him lean back against Joonmyun's chest as a sign of complete surrender. "Look, Sehun, I _need_ that top because forecast says it'll be cold in the evening so I need to put on at least two layers–"

"No," Sehun says, voice firm and resolute. He looks at Joonmyun with a focused gaze, then wraps his fingers around Joonmyun's wrist in a loose grip. Joonmyun can shake it off if he wants to, can tell Sehun to _let go_ , but something about the worry written on the furrow of Sehun's eyebrows and the tight corners of his lips pins Joonmyun in place, stuns him, keeps him from doing anything else but taking a deep, deep breath. "Look at yourself," he adds after a while, voice dropping to a whisper. "I can't even see much of your waist anymore and the whole left part of your chest is _gone_ and–" He takes a deep breath, his grip on Joonmyun tightening in accord. "When did this start?"

Joonmyun scoffs. "It's much better now, I'm telling you," Joonmyun murmurs. He can feel Sehun's grip on his wrist loosening, but he doesn't shake Sehun off yet. He won't make the same mistake of brushing people off just because they want to know what's wrong, just because they want to make him feel better. And Sehun's the last person who'll ever want more than just a simple answer and maybe a hug. So he looks up, meeting Sehun's gaze and sucking in his bottom lip before summoning the right words to crawl back up his throat. His breath hitches for a moment and _shit,_ he tells himself, _stop fucking things up,_ then his throat's loosening, the tension that was once making his throat go dry lifting in the wake of Sehun's warm smile. "A few weeks ago, I couldn't see my waist anymore–"

"Hyung, I said–" Sehun clears his throat then repeats, drawling his syllables this time, " _when did this start?_ "

Joonmyun takes a deep breath and cracks his neck. He reaches for his nape, scratching it lightly, then answers, "I don't know. A few weeks ago? Last month?" He twists his mouth, worrying his bottom lip again until Sehun furrows his eyebrows even more and gives his wrist a lazy tug. The friction makes him shiver, makes a familiar sizzle of heat crawl up his nape and wrap around his neck. There it is again, the loud thumping in the base of his throat, the thrumming pulse in his palms, all of them trying to tell him something while he closes his eyes and listens to nothing, no one else but himself. It makes him shiver. "Why does it even matter? I'm sort of whole again. I have more skin than translucent parts now. _I'm alright._ So why does it have to be such a big deal?"

"Because we could've tried to do something about it sooner–"

Joonmyun scoffs. "You– You think I haven't been trying to look for a solution? Do you _seriously think_ that I'm enjoying this, Sehunnie?" He shakes his head, averting his gaze, but Sehun's grip on his wrist makes it night impossible to look the other way. He's trapped right here, like how he's been for the past five years before Yixing decided to bug him about the milk bottles he kept refusing to accept. "Because I'm not. Everyday, I wake up fearing that I've lost a finger or a hand or even a limb. Everytime I feel unbearably light, I think I'm about to disappear. And really, it's not the actual condition that scares me. It's the mere knowledge of having it and how it can _ruin_ me that freaks me out."

Sehun drops his gaze to his feet and catches his bottom lip between his teeth. Joonmyun wants to reach out, wants to pull up the corners of Sehun's mouth with his thumbs because Sehun looks like Halloween on Christmas Day. "So tell me, Sehun, why should knowing when the virus stared spreading again matter? Shouldn't I just be glad that I'm _alive?_ "

"Because you're not even supposed to be losing yourself anymore?" Sehun answers. He loosens his grip again, dropping his hand to his side completely, then takes a step back. "The virus is supposed to be _dead,_ hyung, not eating you up alive. You shouldn't be–" Sehun's voice cracks, bright and loud in the silence in the room, and that's when Joonmyun furrows his eyebrows, scrunches his nose. Curls in his fists tight enough that he can feel his nails digging into his skin. But Sehun presses on after a few quick breaths, reaching only for the pads of Joonmyun's fingers. "You're finally _alive;_ why does this have to happen now?"

Joonmyun leans back a little and laughs. It's the same question he's been asking himself for the past few weeks, _months,_ from when Sehun had returned from his trip and Joonmyun saw him considerably paler than when he'd left for his trip. And it was strange because if Sehun were any other person bathing in sunlight then Joonmyun's certain that Sehun would've gotten a tan already. The toned muscles of his legs and his arms speak of the travels he's gone to, but the sickening paleness of his skin, slowly losing color, says otherwise.

It can't be, Joonmyun thought then, thinks _now_ as he glances at his reflection in the mirror. He'd gotten his ankles back two days ago. His left thumb, just after he'd finished washing the dishes with Yixing last night. The skin on his left collarbone took longer than usual to regenerate, but at least he can see hints of his skin again. And the good type of progress is always welcome in his book. But then he hadn't gone out the past two weeks, and even if he did he'd always returned to the mansion in an hour with Yixing in tow. They didn't spend long hours out in the open field at the back anymore; the autumn breeze was too unkind, ruffling the neat stack of their papers all the time. The season makes it more of a chore to stay outdoors and run the risk of losing their research work to the wind than the time for rest and relaxation that it should.

The season is a blessing in disguise. It's one of those few times when Joonmyun feels that all the forces of nature are working _with_ rather than against him, even if he's slowly losing bits and pieces of himself everytime he stays outside for too long. A handful of seconds of his life in exchange for happiness. A piece of himself for some time with Yixing.

"Shit happens to the best of us," Joonmyun answers after a while. He looks at his reflection in the mirror again and thinks, hey, his waist is healing up faster than it should. The stronger medicine should be working its magic on him now. If this keeps up, he might even be able to restore the left side of his chest completely. It’s only a matter of time until he becomes well again. "We just have to... find a way to turn things around and make things work somehow."

Sehun blows at his bangs, then bites down on his bottom lip. "Your... french toast is ready, by the way," he mutters, then saunters forward until the tips of their slippers meet, bumping into each other and jolting Joonmyun back to life. "As is the coffee. Unless lover boy-hyung's gonna tell you to drop the coffee again in exchange for milk and–"

Joonmyun chuckles. "It's a sales pitch," he whispers, then opens his arms wide for Sehun to slip into. "I'll never give up your coffee for anything in this world."

Breakfast becomes a quiet exchange of nudges in the side that Joonmyun doesn't even know how to interpret. It feels a bit weird, makes his insides turn because silence with Sehun has always been kind of therapeutic, but something about the lull and the white noise crackling in the background makes his insides turn. Sehun's smiling again, though, eating more, humming under his breath less, and by the time Joonmyun has to leave for his trip to the city center, Sehun's having his second cup of coffee for the morning. "Come back soon," Sehun whispers into Joonmyun's ear when he wraps his arms around Joonmyun in a tight, tight hug. "And don't strain yourself." But Joonmyun knows better than to make promises, _should_ know better than to just say 'yes' to anyone and anything that comes his way. So instead he answers with a tight-lipped smile, reaches out to ruffle Sehun's hair. If Sehun ever calls him out on breaking his promise in the future, then he can always he never said 'yes', in the first place.

He can't bear to let anyone down anymore. _Ever._

☀

"I can't believe you're still driving this car. _The same car_ that we used when we did that... roadtrip after the oath-taking," Lu Han grumbles. He settles into the backseat, nonetheless, folding his legs under his weight before leaning back. "And _wow,_ it still smells fucking brand new."

Yixing only laughs in response before turning down the volume. "You know me, I'm good at taking care of my things," he says, then looks over his shoulder to give Lu Han a light pinch in the cheek. Lu Han's first response is a gasp; his second, a sly grin. Soon, he's crooning and leaning into the touch like he's always wanted this – Yixing's warm palm pressed to his cheek, the blanket of cold from the old car's airconditioning doing very little to keep them from pulling apart. It's a joke, Joonmyun knows that, but part of him can't help but feel a bit weird as Yixing shifts in his position, sliding his hand even lower so he can scratch the underside of Lu Han's chin. Yixing told him before that if he and Lu Han were the last people in the world and they had to fuck to save each other, they'd rather die in each other's arms. "It's more romantic that way," Yixing had even said, nodding in thought. "More... dramatic. And Lu Han loves drama more than anything else."

"He sounds perfect," Joonmyun had said then, laughing.

Yixing cocked an eyebrow at him and whispered, "Hey, don't fall in love with him."

"Stop, I'm not one of your pets," Lu Han groans, then slaps Yixing's hand away. Or at least that's what he means to do, except Yixing has already pulled away and he ends up hitting himself just a little, instead. The patch of red on his cheek lifts quickly, though, melts into a toothy grin that Lu Han flashes at Yixing. And then Lu Han's reaching out, ruffling Yixing's hair and shaking his head. "Man, the last time we saw each other was _lightyears_ ago! I can't even recognize you without the... long hair or something."

"Don't exaggerate," Yixing says, laughing. He sits up straight, facing the road in thoughtless response when he hears someone honking at them. He pushes the hazard button again, then, turning off the orange lights before stepping on the gas. "It's only been half a decade."

"Whatever. It felt like a lifetime," Lu Han counters, then leans closer to the two to reach for the volume knob of the stereo. "So, what did I miss?"

Joonmyun looks to his side and tries to wear the best smile that he can. Lu Han looks up at him and squints his eyes, then gives him a once over. His stomach twists and tumbles. It feels a bit weird to be occupying the passenger seat when Lu Han, Yixing's best friend since the beginning of time, is the one riding with them at the back, even more because it's only been seven, eight months he and Yixing have been friends. It's sort of... an unspoken rule when hitching a ride with anyone: the one closest with the driver takes the passenger seat. Everyone else gets relegated to the back, no questions asked. In Joonmyun's defense, _they_ picked up Lu Han from the terminal, but if Yixing really wanted Lu Han to sit in front, he could've just asked.

The corners of Lu Han's lips curl up, lifting the rest of his features until the corners of his eyes are crinkling. Joonmyun gulps hard. It almost feels like sitting in for a nine-hour exam, knowing that all the bullshit you'd studied the night before didn't sink in. Or maybe even scrubbing in for the very first time and being asked to do the cut, _this is your first, Joonmyun; make it memorable,_ and choking even before you can hold the knife properly in one hand. And Joonmyun can tap out now, swing his door open and get out of the car as fast he can, but then Yixing's reaching out with one hand, fastening him in place as he slides his hand up Joonmyun's thigh.

"It's rude to stare, Han," Yixing calls out, then jerks his elbow back. He misses Lu Han by a few good inches when Lu Han leans back, but he keeps his hand on Joonmyun's skin, anyway. He's rubbing random squiggles on Joonmyun's thigh now, sometimes even real figures – a spiral, some clouds. A star, a heart. Then three quick taps that make Joonmyun look up and into Yixing's eyes. "Don't scare the kid. He's cute. And you don't want to scare off the cute ones."

"I was just going ask for his name. _Relax,_ " Lu Han retorts. He hums the next song that comes on on the radio, then, one of those songs Yixing was singing the other day, when Yixing was reading a journal out loud while playing with Joonmyun's hair. Lu Han never pushes through with his plans, though. Joonmyun recalls falling asleep halfway through, but Yixing didn't wake him up. Instead, Joonmyun roused from his slumber to the sharp scent of vanilla and sweat in Yixing's shirt, thick in his nostrils. Or was the shirt his? He can't tell anymore. They've come to a point where the only thing that each other owned that they won't share are their tooth brushes and underwear.

"You're like one of those not-couples you see in TV shows," Sehun mentioned one time, when he chanced on the two of them rousing from sleep on the couch. On a normal day, Yixing loves touches, whether the ones that leave a nasty burn on Joonmyun's skin or the ones that are just barely there that Joonmyun wonders if they even happened. Fresh from sleep and still wrapped in lethargy, though, Yixing is a fierce cuddler, wrapping his arms around the nearest thing and refusing to let go until five, ten minutes after. And Joonmyun's just there, immovable, convenient. He's almost always the closest thing. "You do all sorts of couple-y stuff but you're not really together but how can you _not be together?_ "

"And why aren't you doing your work?" Joonmyun would always counter, ending with a small smile. Then Sehun would frown, stick out his tongue, then grumble, _I hope you two finally kiss so I can have my peace already. Geez._

Joonmyun laughs a little at the memory. That hardly solves anything. It might even make matters worse.

The lanterns aren't completely set up yet by the time they arrive at the city center, but there are a couple of areas lined with the paper lanterns already. They walk the entire stretch, with Yixing inching closer to the lanterns at every stop to take a few pictures. The light from the lanterns casts Yixing a soft, warm glow, and if Joonmyun just had a working phone that isn't one of Sehun's nearly-busted clamshell phones then he'd wield that in a second, snap a photo of Yixing or two. Stare at it during those few times that Yixing can't come over because he's been feeling his body weakening. Blaming old age for all the weird hiccups his body has been encountering lately.

Joonmyun inches closer to where Yixing is, worrying his bottom lip a little as he watches the latter frame his next shot. The last time he went out on a photography trip was around seven years ago. He was still in Seoul then, and Baekhyun still knew who he was. Clung to him like a person in the wild without a map and a compass. And Baekhyun was so bad at directions.

The sharp sound of the shutter going off, and Joonmyun takes a sharp breath. He digs his hands deep in his pockets when Yixing motions to turn around, torso twisted in an awkward position. He'd caught sight of the pads of his fingers growing lighter earlier. Maybe if he keeps it inside, doesn't expose it to other virus in the air, the fading might slow down.

Maybe if he keeps it a secret then it will go away eventually. _Hopefully._

"'Myun," Yixing calls out, facing the lanterns again for a quick snap before looking over his shoulder. Sunlight catches on Yixing's hair, filters between his eyelashes and casts these narrow lines of light on his cheeks. And Joonmyun balls his hands into fists in his pockets because there it is again, that weird, sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach, the thumping in his chest when the corners of Yixing's lips curl up all the more. Yixing seems to get it, lips quirking up in the most peculiar manner ever, like he's caught between holding back and just giving in and _maybe_ teasing Joonmyun a bit more. And he's darting out his tongue, licking a stripe along his bottom lip as he parts his lips in invitation.

Unfair, says a voice at the back of Joonmyun's mind. He can't be losing fractions of himself every minute and losing to the sweet allure of Yixing's charms, as well. He can't lose his limbs and then be forced to surrender his heart. It shouldn't work that way.

"'Myun, can you..." Yixing licks his lips again, then guides his gaze to where Joonmyun's worrying his bottom lip. "Can you take a picture of me with the lanterns as the background?" he finishes. He cocks his head to the side, exposing the slope of his neck, then lifts an eyebrow at Joonmyun, almost as if he's reminding Joonmyun that there's a question to be answered, a challenge to be claimed. A choice to be made. Joonmyun saunters closer, then, pulling out his hands from his pockets and wrapping his fingers around the body of Yixing's fancy point-and-shoot. He motions to pull away, but Yixing is quick to reach out, to trap Joonmyun's fingers under the warm press of his own. Joonmyun takes a deep breath, then, inhaling sharply through his nose, as Yixing leans in to whisper, "Wide, landscape. I look pretty weird in close-ups."

Not true, Joonmyun wants to say, but his tongue still feels to numb to move and part of him just wants to pin Yixing to the closest flat surface, trace the wicked corners of Yixing's mouth with the gentle swipe of his tongue until Yixing parts his lips, granting permission. Something Baekhyun would dare him to do out in the open, probably, while Yixing only watched his lips through half-lidded eyes, a lazy smile tugging up at the corners of Yixing's mouth. "You... don't," he whispers, faint and breathless with the distance between them thinning even more. Then he tilts his head up, looking at Yixing this time as he says, "You don't look weird at all."

Yixing laughs. "You're just saying that because–"

–because I'm probably so into you and I just can't say it, a voice at the back of Joonmyun says. He doesn't spill it. Instead, he hums and nods, then whispers, "Because?"

"Because he hates seeing his dimples in pictures," Lu Han calls out from over Joonmyun's shoulder. Joonmyun presses his lips together and leans back, ready to pull away, but Yixing shakes his head, slow and gentle, as if pleading him to stay. "He thinks he looks weird in pictures when his dimples are going, like, _boom, dimples!_ "

Yixing chuckles. The vibrations prickle Joonmyun's skin. "What does that even mean?"

And what does _this_ mean, Joonmyun asks at the back of his mind when Yixing tilts his head and leans even closer, close enough that Joonmyun's vision blurs into the colors of Yixing's top, close enough that all he can feel right now is Yixing's thundering pulse on his skin, the thumping in his chest, their shallow breathing, and the heat of Yixing's breath on his skin. But Yixing doesn't say a thing, doesn't even move, just stays there in the weird fit of their bodies, the link of their hands, the sticky slide of their cheeks brushing against each other.

Yixing pulls away after a while but doesn't quite step back all the way. He looks around for an audience, then, just a quick scan of the place that takes no more than five seconds, and then he's pressing his lips to Joonmyun's knuckles before unwrapping his fingers from Joonmyun's own.

"So," Yixing says, voice lilting. He inches closer to lanterns in the background then gets down on one knee. "Ready whenever you are."

Joonmyun sucks in his bottom lip, then draws his hand close to his mouth. They've been through this at least a thousand times already – a graze of the lips against the nape, the underside of the jaw, warm arms wrapped around each other. Holding each other by the tips of each other's fingers so tight like one of them will be taken away. Linking their ankles under the table like teenagers running around each other, wondering if it's the same song they're dancing to. It's ridiculous. So Joonmyun takes a deep breath, lets the rush of the moment drape over him like a cloak, and presses his lips where his skin feels the warmest.

"I'm ready," he says, eyes fixed on nothing, no one else but Yixing. Yixing grins.

_I'm ready if you are._

☀

They end up having dinner at a side street, just a block away from the expo venue and right beside a food cart. Yixing had insisted on going for samgyupsal earlier, around six in the evening, but even before they could decide on a restaurant to go to the lantern show already started. Then Lu Han looked at Yixing with pleading eyes, eyebrows almost meeting in the middle as he said, "Can we stay a little longer?"

Yixing took a deep breath, then patted the empty space beside him as he looked in Joonmyun's direction. Joonmyun settled right beside him, then, leaning against Yixing's side when the lights had already dimmed. The ground was a bit wet and it was getting even colder by the minute, but somehow the comfortable fit of their bodies was enough to keep them warm. Enough that Joonmyun pulled one hand out of his pocket to slide his fingers between Yixing's own, just warm enough that Yixing didn't even need to risk a glance at Joonmyun to ask what _this_ meant. He just hooked his fingers on Joonmyun's own and stayed like that until the end of the show, until the lights flickered on again and they could both see things more clearly – their intertwined fingers, the way Yixing had his head resting against Joonmyun's own, the way Joonmyun melted into Yixing's touch like he'd thrown all caution to the wind once and for all.

"He's weak for me. Can't say 'no' to whatever I ask of him," Lu Han says now as he snatches the last piece of rice cake from the tteokbokki Yixing ordered, balancing the stick between his teeth. Yixing makes a weird, gurgling sound, face scrunched in disapproval, but for the most part he just looks as if he's going to burst out laughing anytime. It's almost impossible to imagine Yixing thrown or pissed off, even just mildly miffed. He was born with a smiling face, Joonmyun muses, and whenever he isn't out to capture hearts in exchange for a warm smile, he's wearing the most vacant expression ever. "I swear! If I ask him now to get me one of those yummy vanilla waffles, he'll buy one–"

"Sorry, Joonmyun asked first," Yixing counters, flashing a toothy grin at Lu Han. Lu Han narrows his eyes in response and makes a show of eating the last piece of tteok. Joonmyun laughs a little – Lu Han just looks like a kid trying to chew the rice cake properly, if anything. He doesn't look threatening at all. "So if I ever get up to buy waffles–"

"For all of us?" Joonmyun singsongs. A corner of his lips curls up, and Yixing rolls his eyes in thoughtless response. "Please?"

Yixing shakes his head and pushes himself off the ground, but he doesn't let go of Joonmyun's hand just yet. Not even when Lu Han traces the motion of their linked hands, or even when Joonmyun looks up at him with a focused, _focused_ gaze. "Why did I even let you two meet?" he mumbles, voice dropping dangerously low, but the smile on his lips betrays him. At best, it makes him look like a masochist, wounding himself by looking in Joonmyun's direction everytime Joonmyun smiles. At worst, it makes him look like some silly teenager in love.

Joonmyun drops the last bit and sticks with the 'silly teenager'. Wraps his mind around that until he hears the words from Yixing, himself, and doesn't read the words scrawled in big, bold characters on the fit of their hands, their bodies.

"And I finally get you alone," Lu Han whispers as soon as Yixing's out of sight. He props himself against his arms, leaning back and looking at the sky as he continues, "I was beginning to think I'd have to resort to morse code already or something. Looks like he was serious when he told me to not freak you out."

Joonmyun snorts, chuckles, begins to cough when he feels the gochujang from the tteokbokki get caught on the walls of his throat. When you're a doctor, it's almost impossible to get freaked out by anything anymore. Seeing some die is almost normal; deciding on someone's death is far less common, but just as unsurprising when you work in the field. And half of his body is close to disappearing – what else can possibly freak him out? He's forty-three, saturated with experience and hardened by years of isolation. He's immune to these things already. But throw in Yixing's laughter in any conversation and his stomach will lurch without preamble. Then he'll feel a loud, wild thumping in his chest, blaring horns in the background, confetti falling right in front of him a Yixing turns to him with the brightest of smiles.

If Lu Han ever finds out what he's thinking of, then he's done for. The dream sequence isn't just ridiculous – it's embarrassing. The fact that someone of Joonmyun's caliber can only be daunted by something as simple as Zhang Yixing's smile, even more.

"Not that I ever meant to, really," Lu Han clarifies now, rubbing circles on Joonmyun back before reaching for a bottle of water. "I was just hoping to ask you a couple of things, that's all. Nothing too... out of the ordinary."

Joonmyun laughs a little. "I didn't think you were serious about the slam book questions," he mutters, then mumbles a small 'thanks' when he turns to look at Lu Han. "But I guess you are. And I've come unprepared."

"Nah, I wasn't talking about that. I think Yixing has already told me enough things about you we can pass off as really good friends already," Lu Han replies, chuckling. He shifts in his position, then, sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk and clasping his hands. He leans in, just close enough that Joonmyun can feel Lu Han's breath prickling the tip of his nose, but not enough for Joonmyun to want to pull away. For a moment, he thinks of asking, is this getting too close a best friend thing?, but soon Lu Han's dropping the bomb, remorseless when he asks: "When are you going to tell Yixing that you like him?"

How can you be so sure that I do, he wants to ask, but then Lu Han's wearing _that smile_ , just a small upward curl of the lip that makes the question he'd just posed more of a statement than an inquiry. Good for you, he almost says – it took Lu Han just a few hours of watching him and Yixing run around in circles, took Lu Han just an afternoon to know that whatever it was that they shared, it wasn't your usual friendship. They can't be the type of friends who'd hold hands just because they feel like it, or the type who'd brush their lips to the back of the other's ear as a show of moral support. Can't be the type of friends who'd curl up in the couch after a long day and fall asleep in each other's arms, expecting to wake up in the morning not feeling a weird, lurching sensation at the pit of their stomach. It's ridiculous. Who even spends hours upon hours sharing both pieces of themselves and a weird, comforting kind of silence with each other without at least hoping to feel a stronger, deeper connection? Who the hell even leans a bit too close for a kiss but holds back at the very last minute and expects to not fall in love?

Joonmyun blows at his bangs and lets out a long exhale. "When do you think I should tell him?" he asks, _answers._ He takes a deep breath, then, and closes his eyes as he lets the next string of words tumble from his lips. "Why should I even let him know? I mean, what if he just wants to be friends? What if he just needs companionship?"

"What if he already has a best friend who can provide both but can't love him differently?" Lu Han counters. Joonmyun looks to his side, eyes wide open and eyebrows furrowed a little. "I've seen how he acts around you, Joonmyun, and only someone so stupid or maybe deliberately naive will ever think that there's _nothing_ going on between the two of you. I mean, yeah, sure, a guy loving a guy isn't exactly normal in the world we live in but–" He snorts, rubs the underside of his nose. He laughs. "Do you seriously think Yixing cares about that? Because _I swear to God,_ Joonmyun, _I swear to God,_ anyone who saw the two of you earlier, whether they're cool with two guys falling in love or not, can easily tell that Yixing gives not a single fuck about that."

Joonmyun gulps hard, tries to swallow around the thick lump of realization lodged in his throat, lets out a breathy sigh. He pulls his knees closer to himself, wraps his arms around them. Breathes in deep. He parts his lips to speak, but then Lu Han beats him to it, whispering when he says, "The position you're in now? That used to be mine. Except back then I didn't know what I wanted or why I wanted what I did. I was a mess then; Yixing was – _is_ perfect. I was bound to fuck him up somehow." Lu Han laughs a little, his voice coming out in a breathy hiccup. "Now I'm glad I didn't."

"That's..." Pretty fucked up, Joonmyun almost says. He bites down on his tongue. Instead, he mutters, "That's pretty selfish," then looks up to meet Lu Han in the eye. "Did you ever have feelings–"

"Maybe. Who knows? I was too young to tell love and lust apart." Lu Han scratches his nape, massages it soon after after. "And maybe back then plastering the best friend sign between us was such a douchey move, but I look at him now and think I've made the right decision.

"You _know_ how you feel about him, Joonmyun. It's written there, all over your–" Lu Han leans in, index finger hovering Joonmyun's face, then, continues, "–all over your weird, pretty face. Pretty sure you would've kissed him earlier if there were fireworks and a live band and sparkles everywhere–"

"Bubbles," Joonmyun whispers, laughing to himself. It's been months since Yixing told him about that, the bit about wanting to walk into a room filled with bubbles and popping them without a care in the world. Yixing looked so happy then, so at ease, _at home,_ that Joonmyun didn't realize Yixing was already leaning his head on Joonmyun's shoulder and their fingers were touching at the tips. And he was so at ease then that he didn't realize that his breath was hitching, the pulse in his palms quickening with every bubble of laughter that played on Yixing's lips. He can't believe he actually _remembers._ "He'll probably want to be kissed under the moonlight with bubbles everywhere. The sparkles are a nice touch but–"

"As long as it's you he's kissing, he'll be alright with anything."

Joonmyun gulps hard. He sucks in his bottom lip, then says, "As long as it's him, I'm... alright with everything."

Lu Han slumps his shoulders. Parts his lips, then blows at his bangs. For a moment, Joonmyun thinks Lu Han's thinking of saying something, _anything_ , as a last fuck-you, but soon he hears Yixing calling out from behind, "Are you two okay with strawberry? The guy ran out of vanilla!" Lu Han looks at him, then, the corners of his lips curled up – more relaxed now, more natural – and he's nodding his head like he can't find the right word for 'yes', so Joonmyun looks over his shoulder and flashes Yixing two thumbs up. "Say it," Lu Han says, voice so soft he could've just been breathing, but Joonmyun knows better than to trust the peculiar smile on Lu Han's lips, the nod of his head, the way Joonmyun's pulse beats long and hard at the back of his ears like a reminder screaming at him, c'mon, Joonmyun, say it. Whatever it is that you have to say, _do it now–_

Joonmyun stands from his seat, dusting himself off and straightening his clothes. He takes a few steps forward, ready to take flight, but he stutters in his steps a bit and turns around to give Lu Han's arm a light squeeze. Then he's walking in Yixing's direction, his steps picking up pace, turning into long strides. He stops only when the tips of his shoes bump against Yixing's own, when he feels Yixing's breath on the tip of his nose, when the sound of Yixing's giggles reaches his ears, wraps around him like a quilt and urges him to lean in until their foreheads bump, until a gasp slips from Yixing's lips.

"I was just asking for your flavor preference," Yixing says, chuckling. "I didn't ask you to–"

"Yes," Joonmyun whispers, then tilts his head up until his lips are brushing against Yixing's cheek. He feels the slow-forming smile on Yixing's lips against his skin, the force of Yixing's fingers curling in his shirt, the mirrored thumps in the press of their bodies, chest to chest, cheek to cheek.

"Yes to strawberry?" Yixing asks. The lilt in his voice makes Joonmyun's giggle.

"Yes to everything."

☀

Where Joonmyun says 'yes' to the changes in his life, life flat out gives him a 'no'. There's still the dregs of summer rainfall in the atmosphere, pouring down on the streets and foiling whatever plans Joonmyun has made, but for the most part it's the erratic weather that keeps him from going out so much and Yixing from coming over after he's done with his milk delivery rounds. That, and transitioning from the vicious heat to the cold also means more work for doctors. There are only so many ways that they can try to prevent the common cold. And there are only so many ways in which Joonmyun can keep himself from wanting to drive miles up north just to share warm milk and cookies with Yixing again.

"I'm banning you from making that face," Joonmyun whispers when he clasps his hand on the receiver of the phone, pinning Sehun with a gaze. Sehun is still smiling, though, still walking in his direction with a tray in hand, two cups placed beside each other. There's a small block of sugar there, as well, for when Joonmyun wants to add a bit more flavor to the milk. Sehun can't seem to get the heating process right. Or maybe Joonmyun has just grown accustomed to how the milk feels much warmer than it should when he's sipping it beside Yixing, how he has no fear getting scalded when Yixing's always armed with cold water, sometimes a cube of ice. And then more infrequently, a brush of his thumb along the swell of Joonmyun's bottom lip. "He said he'd contracted a flu and now he's down with fever so I just want to make sure–"

"Yeah, hyung, I get it," Sehun begins, then sets the tray on the table. "You just want to make sure that whatever drug you'd recommended him to take works. He's just a test subject for one of your... more recent projects. Mhmm." He nods, then, slow and deliberate, and that's when Joonmyun takes advantage of his position, swiping his foot along the space where Sehun stands and hoping he'll see some success in trying to trip Sehun. Sehun dodges, though, just by the width of a hair, but topples back into the seat just behind him. Then the table gives a tiny shake, just strong enough to stir the liquids and release some of the steam trapped beneath the surface of the coffee. "I'm pretty surprised you're not examining him on the table and making him bend over–"

Three rings, and Yixing finally picks up after a sniffle and a yawn. Joonmyun shuts his eyes at the familiar sound, the knot in his chest loosening. At least, he thinks to himself as Yixing tries to string his words together, sniffling between syllables, at least Yixing is still well enough to carry out a conversation for the next ten, twenty minutes. At least he's well enough to get up and pick up the phone at all.

"You alright?" Yixing asks when the conversation thins into silence thirty minutes in. His voice is scratchier than it should be, but the lilt in his tone sort of covers up the cracks, makes it sound as if he isn't sick and it's just the phone line making him sound ten times worse than he really is. Joonmyun nods, then, forgetting for a moment that Yixing can't see him, but soon he grunts in response to break the silence. "O...kay. You... sound pretty troubled or something. Is anything bothering you?"

Joonmyun laughs a little and drops his gaze to his left hand. His pinky is halfway translucent now, but he can still see the moles lined along the web of his fingers. He almost lost two fingers the week before, the morning after their trip to the city center for the Hanji festival, but after medication and more rest than he believes he'll ever need, he managed to restore one to full health; the other is fast catching up. But his ankle situation isn't getting any better – the translucent blanket is crawling up his legs faster than it should, wrapping nearly a fourth of his leg in a thick sheet of pale, pale skin.

He still feels pain whenever he jams his foot into a desk, the bathroom door, against Yixing's leg when it's still too early to be having breakfast and their limbs are terribly uncoordinated, but every action feels less real when you see _something else_ through your body. It almost feels like you're toeing two dimensions, your soul separating from your body and having to sit back to watch everything unfold right before its eyes. And then there will be no way to save your other self, no way to piece yourself back together. No way to feel whole again.

"I'm good. Just... running a bit low on sleep," he mutters. He kicks Sehun under the table when he catches Sehun snorting from just a few inches away. "I'll be alright. Nothing good coffee can't fix."

Yixing hums. Joonmyun gulps hard at the sound, presses his ears closer to the receiver, if that's even possible. If he listens closely enough, maybe he'll know exactly Yixing means by 'feeling under the weather', or by Lu Han saying, 'I mean he looks pretty alive but he's been getting paler by the minute. _Not really by the minute,_ but it almost seems as if he hasn't been eating for days. And I know you won't ever let that happen.' And maybe he'll know what the lurching sensation in his stomach is trying to tell him, the words coming to him more clearly than before – you're scared because you know the consequences, because you know what will happen in the very end. How can you possibly screw up again, Joonmyun? _How can you let Yixing down?_

"Just coffee?" Yixing says after a while, voice lilting. He laughs a little. "No milk and cookies? I'm pretty disappointed." Maybe a few more minutes and Yixing will be well again, with or without the medicine. Maybe all Yixing needs to do is stay a few good feet from where Joonmyun is and he'll be safe. "I thought I was part of your routine already?"

"It's not really routine when you change something everyday," Joonmyun mumbles. He looks around for an audience, then, taking a deep breath as he drops his voice to a whisper. "And it's... not really the same without you."

Yixing gasps, sharp and unhurried, and then his voice is thinning to these faint little giggles. "Smooth talker," Yixing whispers into the receiver, hiccupping. Joonmyun leans against the phone and grins. "I'm never asking you that again, _ever._ "

The conversation dissolves into a discussion on one of the cases Yixing is solving at the moment, a peculiar case that has something to do with behavior being able to manipulate the body's natural recovery system to the point that a single yet powerful positive idea might spark change in the way the person's body reacts to outside forces. "And yes, I know it's pretty–" Joonmyun tells Minseok on the phone now, trapping his phone between his cheek and his neck now as he shifts in his position in his seat, folding his fading leg under his weight and sitting on it. He can still feel the pressing warmth of his skin against his calf but he feels oddly light, almost as if parts of him are slowly disintegrating and not just fading into a thin sheet of translucency. "–I know it's pretty ambitious to try to attempt to develop a drug as such but _what if,_ hyung, what if we were able to do something like that? Like, an endorphin that can actually save people's lives after... x number of months, maybe years?"

Minseok laughs on the other end of the line. "I'd have to read the research made on that but it _is_ possible," he answers, then, voice soon dropping to a whisper. "But as always, we need a source. Something to draw and cultivate the endorphins from. We're not gods. We can't–" He snorts. "We can't just go creating things out of thin air."

The same logic this mansion operates on, Joonmyun muses. The mansion is meant to cure, after all, not to create. Sure, there's a bit of magic involved, but even that required a sacrifice – a portion of Joonmyun's life, an ounce of his mortality. A promise that as long as there is one person in the world other than him who has the same condition as he does, he can't die.

"You can use me," Joonmyun suggests. If he isn't dying anytime soon then he might as well put himself into good use, right? "I mean, I used myself as the parent for the antidote. That rid Baekhyun of all the– I don't know to call it. The virus? Yeah, the virus – the antidote countered that perfectly. It was just a matter of countering the virus _within_ the vessel in which it was contained. In that particular case, I had to inject that antidote direct to his medulla oblongata."

"To ease the fluid into the system and pump it through the veins like blood," Minseok continues. He scoffs. "Sly and sneaky, but insanely effective. I can't believe you actually thought about that on the fly."

"You _did_ say I was a genius, hyung," Joonmyun singsongs. It happened during Joonmyun's second year in medical residency. He'd successfully made a diagnosis within the same day the case was handed to him. The solution wasn't what made Minseok look at him and study him carefully – it was the way he dissected the steps that made up the recovery process that earned Joonmyun the monicker "Miracle Maker". "Right now, I just feel kinda insulted that you didn't think I was capable of coming up with something like that."

" _On the fly,_ Joonmyun. _On the fly,_ " Minseok reasons. "I wouldn't be able to turn things around if I had to save my dying sister in less that a minute–"

"Which proves your theory that I _am_ a genius."

"–right. Whatever. Love yourself, have fun," Minseok mumbles. There's a lilt in his voice, though, one that belies the grit in his words. The MInseok Joonmyun has come to see during operations and medical discussions isn't this soft, pliant. This isn't his mentor talking to him; this is his friend trying to help him make things work. "But seriously, though, are you– Will you be alright?"

Joonmyun takes a deep breath and throws his head back against his seat, then holds his free hand up against the ceiling. He can hardly see the base of his left palm anymore. Maybe he should up the dosage, or try to develop a drug that can target specific areas of the body without affecting how the other parts of his system works. Or maybe he should stop taking the drugs for the time being and just see how the magic and the science cloaking his mansion can actually help him out. Just let things take their own course and let the magic actually _happen_ instead of controlling it.

He snorts. The last time he let himself lose control, he opened the door for a stranger selling milk and cookies. And look where he is now.

"Recovery's slow, but I'm getting there," he says. He takes a deep breath, then drops his hand to his thigh. "It's not me I'm worried about, though. It's... the people around me, the ones I've been exposed to recently – you, Jongdae, Yura, Sehun–"

"–Yixing," Minseok finishes. Joonmyun laughs a little in response, doesn't even try to deny anything. "Just... monitor his condition and we'll see what we can do. No promises, but if it's something we can fix then–"

"–why the hell not, yeah," Joonmyun continues. He snorts, shoulders shaking as the rest of Minseok's laughter sticks to his skin. "Still haven't forgotten that, hyung. I got that from you."

Joonmyun doesn't hang up until ten minutes after, once he's done running a few questions on another case by Minseok. He plays with his phone in his hand, twirling it by the face of the screen, tempted to just pull up Yixing's contact card and give him a call. It's only ten in the evening, after all, and if experience is anything to go by then he's certain that Yixing's still working on his own journals right now, trying to combat two things at the dead of the night – fatigue and the sweet allure of his own bed. So he dials Yixing’s number, closes his eyes and focuses on nothing else but the shrill ringing sound in his ears. It sounds nothing like the bell Yixing sounds when he's near, or even the songs he sings while he heats milk on Joonmyun's stove, but it's at least a promise that he might get through the lines, might get to reach Yixing and maybe spend the next hour or so listening to the sound of his voice.

Yixing greets him with a faint 'hey', a soft chuckle. And Joonmyun breathes out.

☀

Joonmyun comes up with a simple celebration for Yixing's birthday, just an intimate lunch by the lake a few minutes away from his mansion. He'd planned on doing something bigger, a bit more extravagant, "We have Sehun around so might as well put him to good use, right?", but Yixing insisted that a picnic close by is more than enough. "We're old; socializing is... just too much," Yixing had reasoned that time, then played with Joonmyun's fingers before slotting his own between them. Joonmyun remembers his breath hitching, recalls his cheeks growing hot as Yixing marvelled at the fit of their hands. "And Lu Han's probably going to talk your head off again and I won't get to spend time with you, so–"

"So, how's the jjigae?" Joonmyun asks now, pressing his lips together in a tight smile. He gives the stew in his bowl a quick stir and grips the spoon tight in one hand. And he shifts his gaze elsewhere, to _anywhere_ but Yixing's discerning gaze. "You said you wanted to try one with oysters so I did away with the pork, but I kept the tofu there since you said you _love tofu,_ and–"

"And it would probably be better if you started eating because the jjigae's getting cold," Yixing answers. He leans in just a little, brushing his knuckles against Joonmyun's cheek. He lets his touch linger, and then he's tracing the curve of Joonmyun's face with the pads of his fingers. Joonmyun gulps hard, then, tightens his hold on the metal spoon all the more, and he seethes when he feels the cool surface prickle his skin. "So we can finish at once and... get to doing other things," he adds after a while, voice lilting. His gaze wanes for a bit, only to resurface more focused and heated as he traces the bridge of Joonmyun's nose with a stare, all the way down to the gentle swell of Joonmyun's lips. "Wonderful things."

Joonmyun chuckles. Parts his lips with a swipe of the tongue, then teases Yixing with a smile. "For science."

Yixing frowns for a moment, then he's pinching Joonmyun's cheek and pulling away. It's the same stunt he'd pulled off months ago, that one summer evening when the rain was pouring way too hard and Yixing appeared at his doorstep, drenched in the rain but still wearing a smile. There were cats mewling in the background. Yixing was shivering in the cold. And the only thing Joonmyun could think of was, would it be okay to just hug him without preamble? Would it be okay to just hold him close? _Why am I asking these things at all?_ Joonmyun can still recall it, the way Yixing had pulled him close with the gentle coax of his fingers, cool against Joonmyun's warm skin, can still recall the way Yixing tilted his head to the side and squinted his eyes like he was studying Yixing, or a specimen, or some piece of writing like it was the most interesting thing ever.

Joonmyun shivers a little when he feels a prickling heat just near the junction of his neck and jaw. It isn't the type of sensation that makes his insides turn or makes his heart thump wildly in his chest. It isn't the same kind of feeling that Yixing's warm smile or the friction in the slide of their limbs gives him. It _burns_ the same way flames do. It makes him wince, but he manages to bite the inside of his cheek even before Yixing can catch it. "I'm interested in human anatomy in particular," Yixing singsongs, then, pulling away with a smile. Then Yixing's snatching the spoon from him, and scooping some of the stew until it spills from the brim, drawing the utensil close to Joonmyun's lips. "Okay, open up–"

Yixing pries Joonmyun's lips open with a press of his pinky. The first contact makes Joonmyun flinch a little, when he feels Yixing's nail dig into his skin, makes his body jerk and his knees go a bit weak. Proximity, he tells himself – he's never been good at dealing with such short distances, especially when he can feel Yixing's breath hovering his skin but not quite sticking to it. And then there it is, the stinging sensation he'd felt just a minute or so ago, this time on his lips. It feels like his lips are being split open, like taking a punch to the face, kissing too much and too little.

He guides his gaze down to the food Yixing is offering him, then catches sight of Yixing's fingers. "Your fingers are... too pale..." he whispers, the wraps his fingers around Yixing's wrist. Another flash of pain, this time accompanied with a crackle, and Yixing drops the spoon to the ground. It's powerful enough that Joonmyun catches the sizzle of energy wrapping around Yixing's wrist, the faint glimmer of light binding Yixing's skin and keeping Joonmyun from touching him.

Powerful enough that a blink after, Joonmyun sees a thin, thin sheet of white crawl up the back of Yixing's hand. Powerful enough that the next thing Joonmyun knows, Yixing's losing more of his color, starting from the tips of his fingers up to where paling skin meets bright, bold flesh. _Powerful enough_ that all the words knocking at the back of Joonmyun's teeth fall back into his throat, all the way down to the pit of his stomach as his insides turn. "Yixing, you're–"

"Sorry about that. I didn't– That spark was _hella electric,_ hah!" He cackles, shaking his head as he folds the tissue into these neat little squares. He runs the cloth along the wet area in gentle dabs, the white of the material turning into a pale red once the liquid seeps in. "I don't think anyone can ever deny that our connection is strong. The spark is literally there; we just have to touch each other–"

" _Yixing,_ " Joonmyun repeats, voice more firm, resolute. He wants to reach out to touch, to hold Yixing's hand up right in front of him, where Yixing can see it more clearly. He wants to close his eyes and wake up to a different reality because this isn't the best of dreams; this is the worst possible nightmare he can ever be faced with. _Fucking get up now,_ he tells himself, pinching the back of his hand, but to no avail – he's still here, stuck in this moment, and Yixing's fast losing the color in his hand. "Yixing, _stop,_ look at your hand for a second and just–"

Yixing tilts his head, eyebrows lifting as he sets the used tissue aside to shift his gaze to his hand. The realization creeps to his features slowly but surely, parts his still red lips and makes his eyebrows furrow and makes his breath hitch. He raises both of his hands, then, holds them up against the sky and splays his fingers in the air.

"I... can't see my little finger," Yixing whispers. He brings his right hand close to his chest, examines each digit like he's studying data and facts and trying to find something wrong in them. _Everything_ is wrong about this situation. "And the tips of my fingers, they're–" A hitch of the breath, then the color in his flesh crawls down by a centimeter, then another, then another. "This– I... can't be disappearing now, can I? I mean, it's not infectious. It's not the type of thing you'd pass on–"

When you don't expose yourselves to each other the way you'd want to, when you're not kissing or sliding up against each other, skin on skin, heart on heart. It shouldn't the type of disease you'd contract just by breathing the same air as person who has it. This particular virus doesn't work that way. Joonmyun's been living with Sehun for years; why didn't Sehun ever experience any of the stigmata of being around Joonmyun, a contaminant? Why was Sehun spared? Why now? _Why Yixing?_

It doesn't matter now, a voice at the back of his mind says as he rummages through his bag for his pillbox. If it's just starting then this is something he can fix. He can save Yixing. So he goes through his things one by one, looking for a familiar blue box where he keeps the pills for color restoration as he mutters, "Pills, pills– _Come on!_ " He'd refilled the case last night when he saw his ankle losing color again. Maybe he'd left it on his bedside table, forgot to throw it inside his bag when he woke feeling much better but still with a translucent foot. "God _damit,_ I should've checked– I should've made sure–"

"Joonmyun," Yixing begins, voice cracking between syllables. "This isn't your fault–"

"Is _is_ ," Joonmyun retorts through gritted teeth. "Because if I didn't open the door that day then you wouldn't be here now, right here, losing your fingers. If I didn't let you inside my house then _maybe_ we'd still be talking at my doorstep and just drinking milk there and this won't have to happen–"

"Joonmyun, look at me," Yixing tries again, clasping his hands on Joonmyun's shoulders this time. He gives Joonmyun's shoulders a shake, lets out a loud exhale when Joonmyun keeps his gaze fixed on the grassy ground around them. Yixing's grip is tight, vicious, but the feel of the burn stings even more; the furrow of Yixing's eyebrows, Yixing's sharp gaze, the downward tug at the corners of his mouth, all these cut Joonmyun wide open, make the dull ache in his chest crawl to the rest of his body even faster. "I said, _look at me, now-_ "

"And what, see the rest of you disappear in a flash? Remember all the things I've been doing wrong all my life? No, I won't. Just let me–" Joonmyun tries to shrug Yixing's grip off, but to no avail – the heat of Yixing's hold stuns him, pins him in place, paralyzes him and keeps him from continuing his search for that one thing that might make Yixing well again. "Let me go and save yourself, Yixing. Can't you see? The more you touch me, the faster you'll disap–"

Yixing drops his hands to his sides, then rolls up one of his pant leg. "I've... always been like this. Sort of," he confesses, pulling up at the cloth even more. Joonmyun holds his breath as the cloth slides up Yixing's skin, or at least where it's supposed to be. Joonmyun can't see anything but a mirror of the picnic mat they're sitting on on Yixing's skin, can't see anything but a faint trace of Yixing's calf, his ankle, then the hint of color peeking where Yixing's foot disappears beneath this sock.

His breath hitches. Joonmyun parts his lips, poised to speak, but there are at least a hundred voices screaming at the back of his mind right now. So instead, he whispers in his faintest voice possible, in the only sound he can muster, "What... is that?"

Yixing laughs a little and leans back, propping himself against his arms. "I got into an accident when I was eight," he explains. Scratches his nape as well with one of his fingers, slowly regaining color. He marvels at the finger for a moment, holding his hand up in the air again, the continues, "It was a sports injury – I used to play soccer. That was where Lu Han and I met. We were the best players in our team and probably the best in the country that time, for our level." He takes a deep breath, then lets out all the air in his lungs in a huff. "So of course some would get jealous, look for ways to ruin our game. Lu Han got tortured by some guys who mocked him for being too pretty, too attached to me. The others threatened to bully my little sister around, maybe even do things to her that I don't even want to think of–"

"Physical and emotional trauma," Joonmyun whispers. He can still feel the heat of Yixing's touch on his skin, can still see wisps of the yellow light that had enveloped Yixing's wrists earlier. Most of his pinky is back, but there's a chip in his nail somewhere towards the center. Joonmyun can't even see the flesh – all he can see is a tiny, empty hole, a pathway to nothingness. "Did you stop?"

"I didn't let them stop me," Yixing answers, laughing. He shakes his hands, like he's trying to restore the feeling in his fingers, but the skin near the translucent portion of his leg is beginning to lose color. Yixing tears his gaze from that, looks up at Joonmyun, instead, and offers a weak smile. "But that didn't keep them from taking me out of the game, from hitting my legs and my ankle and just leaving me on the field after they beat me up."

"And Lu Han?"

"They left him somewhere else. Outside the school. Took a while to find him," Yixing whispers, snorts. He presses his thumbs to his fingers one by one, a self-check, and assurance that he's still mostly whole. Joonmyun shivers. "We saw each other again at the hospital. It was a really nice reunion."

Joonmyun reaches out, jabbing Yixing in the arm, muscle memory getting the better of him, but soon he's jerking back when he feels a familiar heat crawl up his arm. It reaches his elbows, numbs the rest of his arm until he can't move the right side of his body anymore. And it makes his breath hitch. Yixing has it worse – he's shutting his eyes and grimacing in pain and he's seething, fingers curled around the area where Joonmyun had just touched him, but he tries to look up. Tries to look at Joonmyun in the eye through the slits of his bangs when he says, "I... think I better take up your offer on that pill–"

Joonmyun takes a deep breath, then pushes himself up on one knee. "Stay here. I'll be back," he mutters, dragging half of his body with him as he inches away from Yixing. "I'll come back for you, I promise. Just don't move–"

Yixing nods, slow and firm. The corners of his lips pull up into a smile.

It's the longest ten minutes of Joonmyun's life as he makes his way back to the mansion, the longest first five minutes of his run as he tries to coax the right side of his body out of the state of paralysis. It takes a while before he feels his limbs again completely – seven minutes, just a few minutes before he reaches home – and he quickens his pace when he feels his knees again. And it takes no more than three knocks on the door for Sehun to open the door for him, no more than a minute to rush to his room to snatch the box of pills from his bedside table. He rummages through his drawer for a tiny pack, two pills contained in a small plastic pouch, then stuffs it in his pocket. And then he's walking as quickly as he can back to the entrance for a full minute, trying to catch his breath before dashing out of his house. He looks over his shoulder only when Sehun calls out his name.

"Keep the door open!" Joonmyun screams, voice cracking somewhere in between. Sehun nods, three bobs of the head to the quickening pulse in Joonmyun's palms. From where Joonmyun is, it almost seems as if Sehun's eyebrows are furrowed and his head is tilted to the side, but then Joonmyun's vision has always be a bit shitty. So he takes a deep breath, places all of his trust in Sehun, hopes that Sehun will _get it._ "Don't close it until I tell you to–"

Yixing's lying flat on his back on the mat when Joonmyun returns, chest heaving and eyes shut as he sings to himself. Joonmyun kneels right beside Yixing, three different pills in one hand and an uncapped bottle in the other, and only then does Yixing open his eyes. Joonmyun's chest tightens. From where Joonmyun is, Yixing looks weaker, ten times older than he should be. His skin is getting paler, but the patches on his arm are slowly regaining color. Like the rest of his body is having difficulty catching up even if he's trying really, really hard to take control over his system. "Oh, you did keep your promise," he whispers after a while, laughter bubbling on his lips. He lifts his hand in Joonmyun's direction, trying to reach for his cheeks, groaning when Joonmyun leans back and shakes his head. "C'mon, come closer. I'll be well again after I take the pills and we can get back to eating and–"

And Yixing recovered faster when Joonmyun stayed away, the six long inches between them keeping them apart. And Yixing got his fingers, his hands, _his arm_ back again when they weren't close, weren't touching each other, were simply looking at each other in the eye. And Joonmyun knows now that if he really wants Yixing to recover from this completely, he has to keep distance from Yixing for a long, long time. Weeks, months, maybe even years. If this kind of virus took months to manifest in Yixing's system, then it will take much longer for his body to get used to it and be prepared for an extraction.

"Okay, I'll just sit up so I can take those already and–" Yixing pushes himself up, the tips of his fingers grazing Joonmyun's own. He shivers for a moment, seething, but soon he's sitting upright, spine snapping straight even if his fingers are beginning to lose color again. "Man, that was quick–"

"The last time," Joonmyun whispers, pausing only to take a deep breath. He brings his free hand closer to Yixing's nape, holding out the one where the pills are in Yixing's direction. Yixing looks to his side, fixing him with a gaze, and then there it is again – the lurching sensation at the pit of Joonmyun's stomach, the dull ache in his chest, the nagging memory of the burns and scars Yixing had left on his skin with every collision of their limbs, every fleeting touch. It's the type of lurch that just makes Joonmyun want to lock himself up in his room, curl up in a corner, and just rock himself to sleep. The same kind of lurch that leaves him feeling oddly bereft, wanting, empty. "This is the last time this will ever happen–"

Yixing laughs a little, then takes the pills one by one. "Of course. I'll be in tip-top shape soon," he answers, then pops the pills between his lips, swallowing them down with water. A hitch of the breath then his eyes are widening, his chest heaving in quick and tiny breaths as he turns to Joonmyun to ask, "What's happening?"

"You'll feel normal again in fifteen minutes, I promise," Joonmyun replies, then snakes an arm around Yixing's waist. There's none of the burn that he'd felt earlier, but he can feel the warmth of Yixing's skin against his own, can feel the thrumming of Yixng's pulse. Part of him wants to give up the familiar warmth for the prickling heat, but– _No. This is for his own good. So just enjoy this last time–_ His own words ring in his ears, and he tries not to shiver when he feels the weight of Yixing's body wearing down on him when they start to walk back to the mansion, the food he'd prepared for lunch left forgotten on the mat. "And you know I never break any of my promises."

"Promise me you'll make seafood jjigae for me again, then? Even if it's not my birthday?" Yixing whispers in Joonmyun's ear, lips brushing along the shell. He can feel the vibrations of Yixing's light laughter, can feel a sharp, traitorous cold wrap around his neck in a tight, vicious grip. It's deadly. Heavily drugged and you're still trying to fight it, Joonmyun wants to tell Yixing, but he feels much too drained and worn out to put up a fight. And his chest keeps tightening. So he lets Yixing lean on his shoulder, lets Yixing rest his weight on his side, their steps drawing out longer with each passing second.

Can't promise you that, Joonmyun says at the back of his mind much later, when the image of the mansion comes into focus. Sehun is still standing by the frame, unmoved, but his figure is slouched and he's slumping his shoulders. _I don't want to make promises anymore._

The last few steps are the most difficult, Joonmyun muses as he helps Yixing get to the foot of the stairs. He helps Yixing sit up, guides Yixing to lean against the stone pillar guarding the front door, then he's taking a step back, into his house and away from Yixing. "Better?" he asks when he feels his elbow hit the frame of the door, and Yixing looks over his shoulder, the glimmer in his eyes back, but his lips still quivering.

Yixing pats the space beside him, three weak taps against the cool floor. "I'd feel better if you were here," he says, then takes a deep, deep breath. "Don't tell me you'll leave me out here to rot. I'm still recovering from that scare earlier."

Joonmyun sucks in his bottom lip. Shakes his head, as well, as he curls his fingers into loose fists. "I'm leaving you out there so you _can_ recover completely," he whispers, then holds a hand up in Yixing's direction when Yixing parts his lips to speak. "No but's. This is what's best for you. The more you touch me, the more you'll lose parts of yourself–"

"But your mansion heals everything, right? I mean, didn't it keep Baekhyun alive for _years?_ Look–" Yixing stands from his seat, then, but his knees shake even before he can take another step forward. He can't even kneel on the floor properly – all the can do is to look up at Joonmyun with furrowed eyebrows and a questioning gaze. And Joonmyun can't look away because isn't it already rude to leave Yixing out there _suffering?_ Isn't it enough that he has to put this barrier between them? Isn't _this_ enough? "All I have to do it to slip my hand inside like this–" Yixing continues, then, inching closer to the door while down on his knees. Then he holds out his hand, hovering the barrier, and reaches out in Joonmyun's direction. Joonmyun shakes his head, keeps muttering under his breath, _stop, stop stop,_ but Yixing presses on. He manages to push past the frame, into the welcoming space of the mansion, but soon the color of his skin retracts, crawling back to his knuckles in a rush as the tips of his fingers begin to fade. "–and then I'll be–"

"Gone," Joonmyun whispers, hanging his head low. He takes a deep breath then sinks to his knees, and pushes back Yixing's hand before Yixing can even do more harm to himself. "I'm sorry, I'll try to figure out a way to cure this but for now–"

Yixing pushes past the barrier and reaches for Joonmyun's face, cupping Joonmyun's cheeks with his hands. The first touch is electric, sends a familiar sizzle of heat down Joonmyun's abdomen and makes his insides turn. It _burns._ "You just won't listen, will you?" Joonmyun groans, wrapping his fingers around Yixing's wrists so he can push Yixing away for good, but soon Yixing's pulling him closer, much, much closer, that their noses bump. Too close that he can feel the heat of Yixing's breath on his skin, too close that his vision blurs and he sees nothing, feels nothing else but the light brush of Yixing's lips on his. Joonmyun gasps, means to say, _save yourself and stop thinking of me,_ but too late – Yixing's coaxing his mouth open with a swipe of his tongue, a gentle suck on Joonmyun's bottom lip, hurried whispers against Yixing's skin that sound a lot like, _we'll figure this out, we'll make this work. We'll get through this together if we just try–_ And then he's giving in, tilting his head back until he tastes Yixing in his mouth, feels the scrape of Yixing's teeth against his bottom lip, feels the burn of the inelegant slide of their mouths take root in his body and jolt him back to life.

He takes a sharp breath, eyes widening, and pulls away in a rush. "I'm sorry," he whispers for the last time, then he's pushing Yixing away, swinging the door forward, hearing the loud 'thud' snap the door in place and flush out the noise from outside.

Silence settles back in, crawls up Joonmyun's spine and makes him shake all over. It rings in his ears, broken only by Sehun's soft and faint, "Sorry, hyung." Joonmyun closes his eyes, then, rests his head against the door, and listens for the three knocks on the other side. For Yixing's voice to seep through the glass of the window just beside him. For Yixing to call his name as he pounds on the glass, three beats to the four loud thumps in Joonmyun's chest when he gets up to look outside the window.

Yixing splays his fingers, slowly regaining color, on the glass, and meets Joonmyun's gaze like he's saying, _come on,_ Joonmyun, you've already taken everything away from me. You can't deny me this. So Joonmyun inches closer and rests his forehead on the glass, meeting the tips of Yixing's fingers with his own. And he closes his eyes when he feels the prickling burn at the back of his eyelids, even before he can see Yixing mouth his name. As he listens to Yixing's heavy breathing on the other side, muffled by the distance between them, by the decision they've been forced to make.


	3. Chapter 3

The thing with having scientists and doctors as friends is that you have to deal with people who are more stubborn than the most. Tell them to stay away and they'll only keep coming back all the more. Tell them that it's okay, you don't need help on the antidote, "I've got the formula perfected _right here–_ " and they'll insist to help you, anyway. Tell them to keep at least six inches of space from you and they'll just look at you silly, as if saying, do you seriously think that the possibility of contracting a disease that can make me vanish from the world can keep me away? Do you, Joonmyun? _Do you?_

So when Minseok, Jongdae, and Yura appeared at Joonmyun's doorstep earlier this evening, thirty minutes past seven, bringing with them their medical equipment, some pizza and soju, and a change of clothes, Joonmyun didn't even ask why they were there. Instead, he stepped to the side, addressed them with a nod, then pulled a mask over his mouth as he muttered, "You came in overalls. I'm proud of you guys."

"I'm questioning my life decisions now," Minseok grumbles now, five minutes past one in the morning, as he pours the liquid he'd mixed earlier into two different test tubes. He holds his hand out in Jongdae's direction, acknowledging Jongdae with only a curt nod and a grunt as he snaps one tube in place between the tongs. Jongdae doesn't seem to mind, though, just mindlessly grabs the tongs without a second thought and places them on Minseok's hand. Returns to staring at the specimen they'd tested on earlier in the Petri dish like it's the most interesting thing in the world while he scribbles unintelligible characters on a big sheet of paper. Joonmyun laughs a little at the scene, at the brand of familiarity hinting at the exact thing Minseok needed just seconds ago and telling Jongdae what he should hand over. It's the same thing that keeps him from not extending his leg in Yura's direction when Yura walks over to where he is, the same thing that keeps him from even addressing Yura with a glance when Yura grumbles and jabs him in the arm, but returns to where she was testing out some solutions against flesh specimens. The same thing that makes him dig his hands in his pockets instead of rushing to Minseok's side to assist, to help out – Minseok hates it when people get in the way of his experiments, after all. "Why are we wearing these ridiculous things again? I can't even hold the tubes properly with this suit on."

"Because you don't want to be the next Invisible Man?" Joonmyun teases, bumping his hip into Minseok's own once he sees Minseok set the tube down in place in the rack. He reaches out, then, turning on the fire, and sets the heat on low after the first few tongues of flame lick the base of the tube. "Or Translucent Man, whichever sounds better. Translucent Man is the politically-correct term, though."

"Shut up, Myun, you shouldn't even be talking," Yura grumbles. She shifts her glance for the briefest of moments, looking up at Joonmyun like she's testing the waters again, years after they'd drifted apart, then she's back to working on her portion of the project. "Don't spread the virus. Not good for Jongdae. He still has a bright future ahead of him as a commercial model."

"–of white fish blastula," Jongdae chirps, holding up an index finger. From behind the mask, Joonmyun sees Jongdae’s cheeks tug up, the corners of eyes crinkling. If years of friendship is anything to go by then Joonmyun's certain this is Jongdae fashioning that weird, crazy grin of his. The same smile that has made the corners of Minseok's lips curl up one too many times. "Seriously, hyung, you should check out my hand in the posters. It's famous now. I might just consider dropping medicine altogether in favor of doing specimen endorsements."

"I think you're forgetting that they got me as a toothpase endorser once," Joonmyun mentions. Beside him, Minseok scoffs, snorts, _cackles,_ and the next thing Joonmyun knows Minseok's shutting his eyes in an effort to contain his laughter. " _What?_ It was a nice picture! They even showed my face! _It's my fifteen seconds of fame–_ "

"You endorsed the toothpaste that autopsy technicians use on the dead," Minseok and Yura chime. They exchange glances for a quick second or two, then slip back into their roles. Joonmyun catches the light quiver of Yura's lips, though, the soft laughter that spills from the corners of Minseok's mouth. "And you were wearing really thick make up then that made it impossible to identify you as you–"

"Still better than a specimen endorsement."

"You'll remember me in every white fish blastula you work on, hyung," Jongdae says, curling his fingers into a loose fist and drawing it closer to himself, left of his chest. "And in every single scientific you endeavor you partake in–"

Joonmyun looks at the three and narrows his eyes at them. "I hate you all."

"Yeah, of course," Minseok mumbles, then sets the flame of the burner on high. "And the more you hate, the more you love."

I beg to differ, Joonmyun wants to say, wants to argue. The situation he and Yixing are in right now? He hates it with every fiber of his being. There is no day that he doesn't regret ever swinging his front door open and putting Yixing at the risk of disappearing forever, no day that he doesn't look back and try to see what he could've done differently or better. They still see each other through the glass everyday, eight to nine in the morning because straining their hearing becomes tiring after a while, but with the thin barrier of the glass between them the option of not seeing each other becomes much more enticing by the minute. Joonmyun won't have to get up at six in the morning anymore just to prepare for Yixing's arrival. Yixing won't need to be on the road by seven in the morning and will even get more hours of sleep. They can just listen to each other breathe through the phone lines. Everybody wins, sort of. But they both lose as well to the urge to take a calculated risk, to reach for the pads of each other's fingers through the small opening of the door at the front, one Sehun had fixed just yesterday to make hearing each other through the door easier.

Joonmyun takes a deep breath and stares at the flame a little longer, letting the image burn the back of his eyelids. Maybe if he stares at it long enough, it will be easier to erase the image of Yixing's smile at the back of his head. And maybe it will be easier to convince himself that whatever solution they come up with? It's just temporary. Yixing's already partly dead, and they're just scientists. There's no way for them to bring the dead back to life.

"Trust Minseok to link everything with love," Yura singsongs, then she's shaking her head and letting out a long sigh. Or at least that's what it sounded like just a few seconds ago, before Yura leaned closer to the dish to her left and started waving her hand in Joonmyun's direction. Joonmyun shifts in his position, then, looking over to where she is, and he sees Yura's eyes widening, sees them crinkle at the corners, catches a glimpse of her cheeks tugging up.

"Wait, _wait–_ " Yura looks up, then turns to her left to meet Joonmyun in the eye. "One of the specimens is reacting! Come, look–"

Joonmyun cranes his neck a little and pushes himself off the stool he's already made himself comfortable on. He makes his way to Yura, then, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he tries to see the specimen better. It takes a while for the image to become clearer, takes a while for the 1 a.m. rush to kick in, and then he's taking a deep breath, widening his eyes, parting his lips in surprise.

"Wait. Isn't that the–" Joonmyun inches even closer, then looks to his right to address Yura. "That's not my skin anymore, right? That's supposed to be Yixing's? A portion you managed to extract from the... damaged part of his body?" Joonmyun grimaces a little at the thought, at the mere notion of Minseok having to scrape some of Yixing's affected flesh just so they can run some tests on it and see if any of the antidotes they've been developing actually works. All he saw then was Yixing looking over his shoulder before he left, Yixing retreating into the distance as he limped while pushing the milk cart days after the extraction took place. Even then, he looked as if he was still in pain. Days after and the dregs of the risk he’d taken still wound around his leg, tight like a vice. "And that should be the liquid from–"

"The 11 p.m. batch, the one before this," Yura mutters. Her shoulders lift. Two beats, then she turns to face Joonmyun, her whole body facing the latter. "That one was unrefined so if it worked – _if it's working now_ – then the next batch of antidotes should be better."

Joonmyun stares at the specimen a little longer, watching as the bubbles that once covered the surface dissipate to reveal a patch of skin, a nice, soft blend of yellow and orange. It isn't the same tone as that of Yixing's skin, isn't quite as bright as the rest of Yixing's body, but color is color. This is a manifestation of life. And if this is the best he can get right now, the best that he can offer Yixing for the time being, then he'll take it. This is better than staring at Yixing's figure on the other side of the glass, knowing that, in some ways, they can never be together again without one putting the other in danger. It's better than hearing Yixing's voice everyday, eight to nine in the morning, through the opening of the small door, knowing he probably might not be able to reach out to touch Yixing again.

So Joonmyun takes a deep breath, then turns to look at Minseok on his left. "Brace yourselves, then, soldiers," he begins, shifting his gaze to Jongdae when he sees Minseok smiling, _laughing,_ shaking his head. He cracks his knuckles and steals a glance at the specimen for one last time. Pushes the urge to reach for his phone from deep in his pocket and dial Yixing's number at the first opportunity. "We're about to go to war."

War, it turns out, is a small drinking session in the living room at three in the morning. Minseok and Jongdae have long passed out on the couch, stripped to just their masks now after taking the protective pills earlier and freeing themselves from the bounds of their overalls, but Yura's still up, uncapping two bottles of Cass and handing one to Joonmyun. "Can't believe I forgot you were actually good at this thing," she mumbles against her mask, then pulls it down for the briefest of moments to take a small sip. "I mean, back when we were still doing our residency, you'd always be the first to disappear from parties and ask to be picked up by your mother–"

Joonmyun snorts, rubs the underside of his nose. Narrows his eyes at Yura when Yura doesn't stop laughing. This is dangerous, Joonmyun wants to tell her, you're exposing yourself, making yourself vulnerable to this virus. _You'll just get hurt._ But then they've already ruled out the possibility of normal humans contracting the condition without having direct contact the contaminant. It requires prolonged exposure with the source, the sticky slide of the limbs, bodies pressed together in a tight, tight fit. And Yura's at least twelve long inches away from him. So he scowls and takes a long swig of his drink, breathing out in faint laughter.

"I've always been a fan of liquor. My father taught me how to drink at a young age," Joonmyun says after a while. He leans back against the counter, then looks in Yura's direction. "But– I dunno, I never really felt comfortable drinking around too many people? With the four of you, sure, I can probably finish three bottles of soju, but with the whole med team? Not in a million years."

"Even if I tell you oppa had a mini stripping show one time?" Yura asks, pressing her lips to the rim of the bottle this time. Joonmyun remembers, all of a sudden, the way Yixing would rest his lips on the mouth of his coffee cup before drinking up, how Yixing would lick his lips after a sip and how he'd close his eyes as if it was his first time tasting coffee that good. He remembers, without meaning to, the way Yixing would press his lips to the underside of Joonmyun's jaw without preamble, how Yixing would dance his fingers over to where Joonmyun's hand was, how their fingers just _fit_ and how their bodies aligned. He's only known Yixing for a few months but it already feels as if they've been dancing around each other forever. And that one time they decided to stop and just face each other, look each other in the eye and just breathe each other in, life decided to wake them up, snap them out of their reverie. Shove the harsh reality in their faces and take them away from each other.

Joonmyun gulps hard and tightens his hold on his beer. Yura furrows her eyebrows a little, but she never questions. On bad days, it works against her, but Joonmyun's much too tired and maybe a bit inebriated to dig up the past, pull up an image of the Yura he knew years ago. Yura steals a glance at him, then, quick, barely there, then continues, "We were all too mesmerized to catch it on camera. It was the best show I'd seen in _years,_ " like she's already seen this coming – Joonmyun's question, the flashbacks, Joonmyun pulling away from the conversation in the same manner that he inches away from the crowd, from people who care about him.

"Did you... always know?" Joonmyun asks. He takes a long swig, then another, parting his lips from the mouth of the bottle when he feels a burp bubbling in his throat. "That I liked Minseok-hyung?"

Yura laughs a little. She sets the bottle down on the counter and drums her fingers, just a few quick taps that jolt Joonmyun awake. "Did I always know you liked men, you mean?" she asks, then. She lets out a long sigh. "Yeah, I think so, but I thought it was just... a phase for you or something."

"It's never just a phase," Joonmyun mumbles. He can still remember that time, when he was in primary school, during P.E. class when one of his classmates saved him from taking a basketball to the face. The kid had pushed him away, then, in an effort to save him, and somehow ended on top of him, their faces just a hitch of a breath away. Part of Joonmyun wanted to push the boy off of him, roll over to his side, inch away, but part of him wondered how the boy could still smell so good despite playing under the sun for hours. Then his stomach lurched, the same kind of sensation that he felt when he saw Yixing through his window for the very first time. He wouldn't know what it meant until he graduated from high school and had to part with said friend, and wouldn't accept to himself that he was attracted to men more than he was to women until he saw Minseok pulling his shirt over his head between shifts, until Minseok looked in his direction, his bare chest stealing all of Joonmyun's attention, as he asked, _Are you alright?_

Until he'd jerked off to that image in the showers the same night, until he'd run into Minseok the following morning and felt like throwing up. Until Minseok reached out to ruffle his hair in the softest, gentlest manner possible, and said, _Relax, kid, we're not on duty yet. You don't have to be so formal with me. Just take a deep breath._

"Mhmm, I figured," Yura whispers in response now, then takes a sip of her beer again. She seethes this time, then wipes the corners of her mouth with her thumb. Then she parts her lips only to press them together in a thin, thin line, like she's still trying to arrange the syllables in her words, string those words together until she can form a better, proper statement. "After you and Baekhyun got together, that reality... sort of sunk in already. And then you two moved in, then you started to take care of him. _And then_ you started withdrawing from the world and your friends. From _us._

"So I guess what I'm trying to say is–" Her voice trails off into a faint whisper, a hiccup. A tiny giggle that spills from the corners of her lips as soon as she swallows down the hiccup she'd let slip earlier. "I'm really glad you... decided to reconnect with us. Ask for help, if you want to put it that way. I mean, it's been so long since we last heard from you and we thought you'd just... decided to withdraw from us completely, d'you get what I mean? We wanted so much to come over to visit and _we did,_ Joonmyun, trust me. _We did–_ "

Joonmyun takes a deep breath and drops his gaze to the bottle. He recalls hearing engine noise outside his house, recalls spotting Yura and Minseok pulling over at the entrance one too many times and alighting their vehicles. And on all of those occasions, he'd asked Sehun to please, please, _please_ tell them nicely that he doesn't want any form of human interaction outside of the one he shares with Sehun. That he prefers hiding behind the thick veil of the internet while communicating with them, seeking advice on certain experiments, just trying to reach out. It wasn't until a year and a half ago that Joonmyun started doing video chats and reconnecting with his friends outside the context of work.

Healing takes time, he wants to say. For Minseok, it took more than a decade. For Yura, it didn't take too long. Just a few months after and she was back in tip-top shape, but she had to bury herself in work the entire time she was going through recovery. And as for Joonmyun, it took a mix of misfortune and an ounce of good luck to get him going on his road to healing, to stick his hand under the water and let it run over his bruised skin until the bleeding stopped. Part of him thinks he's kept his hand there for too long already that the pressure from the water's already wounding him more than it should, but the cut hasn't closed yet. So he'll stay there until the day comes when he's shiny and brand new again. Whole, complete. Alive.

"I know. I saw you guys from the windows. I think in the span of a year, you two even changed cars. Pretty amazing, to be honest." Joonmyun laughs a little and shakes his head, then drinks up the last few gulps of his beer. Yura's taken off her mask now, but she hasn't inched closer, still isn't drunk enough to slide next to Joonmyun for old times' sake. She never was too drunk to let loose, save for that one time in the pub where the series of Joonmyun's bad decisions began. "But I– I don't know. I just couldn't... find the strength to face you guys just yet? I knew I disappointed you then. I knew everyone saw me as a failure, a big blunder." He lets out a long sigh, then finishes by blowing at his bangs. The only thing he ever succeeds in doing, though, is prickling his eyes with the heat of his own breath. He laughs to himself – _wrong again._

"But you're here now," Yura whispers, shifting in her position so that she's facing Joonmyun. From where Joonmyun is, he can see her tilts her head to the side, in the same direction that a corner of her lips tugs up. This is it, Joonmyun thinks, the woman he became a bit too fond of years ago, the woman he could have fallen in love with had circumstances been different. The same person who was the first to offer help to Joonmyun to try to find a cure to Yixing's condition but the last to step inside the house, asking, _is it really okay for us to work here? I mean, I know you hate it when someone gets in the way of good research–_

" _Rather,_ you let us in," she continues, then presses her lips into a tight-lipped smile. "And honestly, that has more bearing than you showing up at the Seoul labs unannounced."

Joonmyun looks up, really looks up now, and meets Yura's gaze. Her cheeks are too red and her forehead is glistening with sweat and she looks like she might pass out anytime, but her gaze hasn't waned. If anything, they've become more focused with the way she's furrowing her eyebrows, with the way she's squinting and nodding in slow, measured bobs of the head. "I guess you could say that... I'm kinda glad this happened?" she adds after a while, voice cracking somewhere towards the middle. "It sucks that we had to reunite this way, but I'm glad something good could come out of it, at least. Never thought I'd see the day that we'd be in the same room again like this, just–"

"But you're not drinking anymore," Joonmyun calls out. She frowns at him and reaches for another bottle on the counter, but it's already been emptied out. And the fridge is more than five steps from where they are. Maybe for those who haven't had at least eight shots of soju and then beer it wouldn't be so much of a chore, but with Joonmyun's head buzzing and the voices at the back of his mind beginning to scream at him, he's finding it more and more difficult to move and crawl to where the fridge is, much less stay awake. So instead, he sets his bottle down on the counter, leans against the surface on his side. Thinks that, hey, it's close to four in the morning and if he wants to see Yixing then he has to get up at six, at the very latest. He needs to go to bed, to sleep. Needs to shut up both his mouth and the voices at the back of his head, all screaming at him. "And you know what would be better? If those two were actually up and drinking with us."

Yura snorts. "Do you want me to wake them up?" she asks, tone firm and resolute, but with a faint lilt towards the end. And she looks a bit serious, but the way her eyes droop and flutter closed betray her. So Joonmyun just shakes his head, smiles, brushes the idea off with a wave of the hand and gets them a glass of water each, instead.

The conversation dissolves into a few quick stories on Jongdae's hand and white fish blastula endorsement, the promotion he'd just received, Minseok finally looking in Yura's direction but only to tell her that sure, they can have dinner, but they can never have dessert together. It's a nice compromise, Joonmyun thinks, an easy way of letting someone down without scarring yourself in the process, so when Yura asks where Joonmyun will be sleeping, if he wants to take the couch instead of the sleeping mat Yura has rolled out on the floor, he shakes his head and says, "Back pains. I'll need to sleep on my bed. Body's kinda missing the... soft cushion already."

"You're old," Yura teases, sticking out her tongue as she leans back into her seat. With a wave of the hand and light laughter, she dismisses him, saying, "Go now, old man, get some rest!"

Joonmyun shakes his head and bites the inside of his cheek, trying to keep himself from laughing, making anymore noise. It's become difficult with fatigue and alcohol making him a bit loose-limbed, but he manages to saunter to the exit, dragging his palm along the wall the whole time. He's already halfway out of the room when Yura calls out to him, saying, "Yixing... has really done you well," in the faintest, softest voice she can muster. "So we'll do everything we can to save him, Joonmyun. We'll do everything we can to help you." He takes a deep breath, then, looks over his shoulder for the briefest of moments, just quick enough for him to catch the wistful smile stretched across Yura's lips, and imprint the image at the back of his mind.

" _We'll_ do everything we can," he whispers in response, back still turned to Yura. Yura hums in reply. "We can do this together."

☁

Christmas passes in a hush, in the songs Joonmyun hears on the radio while Sehun cleans the kitchen or in shows on television that he chances upon when he isn't working on the next wonder drug. It doesn't bother him that much – he hasn't celebrated Christmas in a while outside the usual feast for two and a toast between him and Sehun to wish a much longer life for themselves. Ridiculous, since he and Sehun might as well be immortal what with the magic surrounding the mansion shielding them from whatever harm might come their way, but Joonmyun wishes for it on Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, nonetheless. There's nothing wrong with a bit of naivety, with clinging to the foolish hope that everything will be right again someday. It makes cold winter nights spent listening to Yixing's voice on the other end of the line, thinking how it would be if Yixing had his arms around Joonmyun, instead, much more bearable. It makes it easier to count down to the day when they see each other again through the glass, or hold each other by the pads of their fingers through the small door in front, instead of counting the days they spend away from each other. Joonmyun gets it now, the secret to living a better life: focusing on what he has rather than what he could have had. Looking through the glass to find Yixing on the other side instead of looking to his side and imagining Yixing holding his hand.

"I took draft 42 of the antidote, by the way, before going here. So it should have... kicked in by now?" Yixing mentions. Something on the other side of the door shifts, ruffles. Maybe he's trying to find a comfortable position where he can stay in for the next hour or two. Yixing's been feeling stronger these days, after shifting from draft 40 to 41 of the set of pills he should be taking for his body to develop a self-sustaining repellant against the flesh-eating virus. His leg is mostly whole again, his skin sporting only small translucent patches instead of strips of it. He can stay up until two, three in the morning again. He can hold Joonmyun's hand for more than a minute through the narrow opening of the door without flinching or feeling like his entire body is aflame. On good days, he can slide his fingers in the webs of Joonmyun's hand; on bad days, when his body is too weak from working too hard and the medicine simply can't tame the virus inside, he can only tap a simple beat on Joonmyun's nails with his own.

But Joonmyun can feel it now – the sticky slide of their fingers, the thundering pulse where Yixing grazes his thumb along Joonmyun's skin. Can hear Yixing humming a soft tune under his breath as he swings their intertwined hands from side to side. _Progress,_ Joonmyun notes – in the past three months that Yixing has been on medication, this is the best development he's shown. On bad weeks during the first week of medication, he could only get up on his feet two out of seven days. Within the first month, he'd be able to stand properly again without feeling his knees give away. The following month, he'd be well enough to slip back into old habit, drop by Joonmyun's place at eight in the morning and stay there until ten, until the heat of the sun gets to him and prickles his skin. "Feels worse than when I touch you," Yixing grumbled one time, groaning at the nasty burn on the back of his hand. He pushed it deeper into the small hole of the door until Joonmyun could see the entirety of Yixing's hand, until Joonmyun swatted his hand away because, "Are you _stupid?_ You're putting yourself in danger–" Until Joonmyun realized that Yixing was already touching him, just a press of the pads of his fingers to Joonmyun's skin, and neither of them was grimacing in pain.

"So how will you key this in the progress log?" Yixing asks now, chuckling as he tightens his hold on Joonmyun.

Joonmyun hums for a bit. " _91710 has displayed level three progress, now able to touch Contaminant 252 without incurring burns and blisters on the area of contact,_ " he says in his blandest, most monotonous tone ever, and the next thing he knows Yixing's pulling away, mumbling something that sounds a lot like, you're the absolute worst. I will never be able to remember those numbers. Unless you call me that everyday and I just get used to it because I know the rhythm of your voice like the back of my hand.

He takes a deep breath, then leans his head on the cool surface of the door. "Zhang Yixing is alive again," he whispers when he finds his voice again, then the magic word for 'progress' spills from the tip of his tongue and coaxes the right words out of him. "And Kim Joonmyun's just been reborn."

Yixing snorts in response. Reaches inside with his other hand, as well, and covers Joonmyun's hand with his own. "You couldn't have gotten through med school by interpreting data like that," he says, voice just above a whisper, but his voice is lilting and cracking and brush of their fingers is _electric_ , stunning all sense of logic in Joonmyun's system and keeping him from pulling away. "How the hell did you graduate with distinction?"

"Magna cum laude," Joonmyun corrects, chuckling. Yixing gives the back of his hand a light pinch. He laughs in thoughtless retaliation. "Come on, at least get that right."

They limit getting things right to formulae and solutions, though, to nailing the components of the antidote and knowing exactly how much time they have until they have to part. The window varies, depending on the condition of Yixing's body: when he's well-rested, they have eight to ten minutes to sit beside each other without a thin veil of glass keeping them apart, without anything to prove to them, not even circumstance, that they can't be together. Without having to worry about leaving nasty cuts and burns on each other's skin without even marking each other with misbehaving hands. When Yixing's feeling weak, overextended, they have no more than two minutes to stay by each other's side. And then there are those lapses in logic, those very few times when they can stay in each other's arms for more than thirty minutes and not walk away with scars. It happens in the garden, more often than not, when they harvest the fruits and vegetables together, elbows bumping as they exchange small smiles, fleeting touches. When the closest they can get to being intimate is linking their ankles and Joonmyun wondering, just wondering, if things can ever go wrong it he takes just one calculated risk.

"Choke it up to your experiment," Joonmyun recalls Sehun commenting one time. "I mean, you'll have to know the extent to which Yixing-hyung can be subject to touch from a contaminant, right? So kiss him. If he ends up with cuts on his lips then lick them clean before pulling away. If nothing bad happens then just keep kissing him." Then Sehun leaned back in his seat, reached for the extra cup of milk he'd heated that morning. He's never quite slipped out of the habit of heating milk for three. "Everybody wins, and nobody loses. And they lived happily ever after. The end."

It doesn't work that way, Joonmyun tells himself now as he settles beside Yixing in the garden, the jut of their ankles brushing. There _are_ no fairytale endings, no happily ever afters. The only thing that he and Yixing can have is five minutes of respite in each other's arms – four minutes and forty-eight seconds now, according to the timer he'd started the moment Yixing stepped inside through the other door from the outside. And maybe the medicine can give them a little extra, say, five, ten more seconds, but that's it. Until the virus inside Yixing dies, until Joonmyun shuts down the virus contained in his body, they'll have to settle for glimpses of each other. They'll have to settle for four minutes and twenty-four seconds of sitting in silence, hands linked by the pinkies, prepared to break away the moment they run out of time.

"I'm working on a... solvent of sorts," Joonmyun begins, then tilts his head to the side so he can see Yixing better. From where he is, with these six long inches between them, he can make out the pimples flaunted on Yixing's cheeks, the tiny cuts on his bottom lip from where Yixing worries his lips too much. The gentle upward curl at the corners of his mouth, as well, guiding Joonmyun gaze up to the dimples on Yixing's cheeks. He can feel his stomach lurching and his toes curling in completely on instinct, but– _No._ "The goal is to dissolve the medicine in your system better and extend its effects," he explains, then, retreating his hand to his side a little, but Yixing fights back. Keeps him _right there_ and fixes him in place with a gaze, pursed lips, a gentle tilt of the head. Like he knows exactly what Joonmyun's thinking about, and that he's thinking of the same thing. So Joonmyun clears his throat, continuing, "I'm not sure if I should up the dosage of your main meds so that the effect of the medicine isn't cut into half, but I'm sorta inclined to do that? I mean, it makes sense – if I want to retain the effect of the medicine even after adding solvent to spread out the particles even more then I have to add _more of the main ingredient to–_ "

"Last two minutes," comes Yixing soft response. He leans in, stopping only when their foreheads bump, when the tip of his nose grazes Joonmyun's skin in the briefest, softest of touches. Soon, Yixing's shifting in his position, his knee digging into the side of Joonmyun's thigh now, and _shit–_ Every touch burns. It's a nice kind of burn, though, the type that crawls up from his ankles to the back of his knees, all the way up until he feels it wrap around his throat in a tight, vicious grip. And it prickles his skin. Every breath Yixing takes leaves these tiny marks on his skin, on his cheek, where Yixing breathes out in tiny packets of air. And every breath _he_ takes makes him ask himself all the more – why am I here, why am I doing this, _why am I not kissing you?_ "Make them count."

"Fifty-nine, fifty-eight–"

Yixing digs his knuckles in Joonmyun's stomach and twists it there, takes a fistful of his shirt so he can pull him closer. "Smart Alec," he mumbles but doesn't quite pull away, just stays there in the tight fit of their bodies with his wrist caught in an awkward twist. Fifty-two, fifty-one, fifty, a voice at the back of Joonmyun's mind counts. He takes a deep breath, then, tries not to close his eyes because if he does then Lord knows what he'll find himself capable of doing. Yixing's still looking at him, at the space between his eyes where his nose stems from, then guiding his gaze down to the jut of Joonmyun's upper lip. And isn't it rude to look away? Isn't it _wrong_ to avert one's gaze when someone's trying to suck you in, heart, mind, and soul? It's like one of those conversations with people who matter – they look at you in the eye because there will always be things they can't say: don't give in, don't put all of our hard work to waste. But if you _do_ decide to make that single mistake then _please,_ Joonmyun, please count me in on this. Let's make that mistake together.

_Forty-four, forty-three, forty-two–_ "What do you want me to do, then?" Joonmyun asks after a while.

"I dunno," Yixing singsongs in a voice so faint, he could have just been breathing. He shifts in his position, pressing even closer, his chapped lips grazing Joonmyun's skin. Joonmyun takes in a deep, shaky breath. "What can _you_ in under two minutes?"

There are a lot of ways to answer the question. He can make good coffee in a minute, can chuck a couple of instant food in the microwave at three in the morning and hope that they'll be warm enough for consumption a minute after. Fix his hair in the mirror before facing Yixing on the other side of the glass on most days, and on the special ones actually open the door to the garden at the back to let Yixing inside. There are a lot of things he can do in a little over a minute, but Yixing seems to speed time up and slow it down in equal amounts whenever they're together. Make another mistake, a voice at the back of his mind says, then, snorting. It sounds a lot like himself. He shakes his head, then, chokes down all the words threatening to spill from his lips when he hears the soft ticking of the hands of his watch. Instead, he answers, "Stay?" and Yixing nods, closing his eyes as he relaxes into the press of their foreheads.

Fifteen seconds until they reach the last minute. Fifteen more seconds until they can enjoy this touch, their shared heat. _Fifteen seconds_ until they have to start saying a minute-long goodbye. And then it's back to the house for Joonmyun, back to the open field in front of Joonmyun's house for Yixing. They'll be pressing their ears to the same door again after that and listening to each other breathe. And then Joonmyun will have to count the days until they get that window again. Even then, he won't know how much time they'll have until the right time comes – a minute or five, ten if they're lucky. Thirty seconds if time isn't on their side, or sometimes just a hitch of the breath. 

_You'll never know unless you try,_ Joonmyun recalls Sehun saying in that bright voice of his, three minutes before eight in the morning. Yixing was already on the other side of the door then, ready to deliver milk and to reach out for Joonmyun's fingers, hold onto them until time decided to push them away. Joonmyun was on his way down, with Sehun holding him by the arm to help him stay on his feet. It was one of those bad days – he had to stay up the whole night to work on draft 41 – but at the first sound of the bell Joonmyun felt a violent breath of life take over him. _So really hyung, just... do it. I mean– Would you rather spend a lifetime asking yourself, what if we could be together sooner? What if we could actually kiss? What if we just had to wish hard enough to make this... weird wish come true?_

Behavior therapy, Joonmyun says to himself, _laughs_ to himself. Maybe Yixing has been teaching Sehun a thing or two about how human behavior can actually cure the sick. Or maybe it really is just that simple – all he has to do is to take Yixing's hand and ask him if he could take that blind leap of faith _with him._

"On a scale of one to ten," Joonmyun begins, laughing a little when he feels Yixing shake his head in the fit of their bodies. Yixing is close, too close, and if he just tilted his head more, leaned a bit closer, if he could just read Joonmyun's mind like the back of his mind then _shit,_ game over. But Yixing isn't the type who'd hand a loss to someone. He'd play things out until the very end, try to make the playing field even if he's always had the upper hand. And then he'd strike just when the opponent thinks he's already had the victory sealed up.

And Yixing lifts one hand now, resting it on Joonmyun's shoulder. Joonmyun shivers at the first contact, gulps hard at the second and at the sizzle of heat that rolls down his abdomen. The pads of Yixing's fingers ghost the slope of his neck. He closes his eyes in thoughtless response. "I said, _shut up,_ listen to me now–"

" _You_ listen to yourself," Yixing counters, then gives Joonmyun's wrist watch three taps. Steals three seconds of Joonmyun's time and three important words that Joonmyun could've already said had Yixing not been such a good distraction. And Yixing knows it. Joonmyun can tell by the way Yixing tilts his head, by the way Yixing pulls him closer with these soft and gentle tugs, taps on his bare skin that can be a morse code for another message Joonmyun can't be bothered to decode at the moment. And Yixing remains dangerously still, waiting and resisting in equal parts. Like he's saying, I think I know what you're about to do but I don't want to jump to conclusions. So tell me, Joonmyun, tell me now. _If there's anything you want to tell me, all you have to do is to lean closer–_ Joonmyun snakes his hands up, then, sliding his palms along Yixing's sides and smiling when he hears Yixing's breathing hitch. Curls his fingers at the base of Yixing's nape and chuckles when it surprises a gasp out of Yixing. This is him listening to himself, to the voices at the back of his head, to the lurching sensation in his stomach that has never let him down. This is him taking bending his knees, ready to take flight, but looking over his shoulder to ask Yixing, will you do this with me?

"Are you out of your mind?" Yixing asks, breathless as he twists a hand in Joonmyun's shirt.

Joonmyun laughs. "Maybe."

Thirty seconds on the clock, and Joonmyun sucks in a deep, rattling breath. He can feel his pulse in his palms, the back of his knees and elbows, his ears, can feel the heavy thumping in his chest. Can taste a sick mix of blood and metal on his lips when he licks them as Yixing's hot breath catches on his skin. He draws his hands further up, then, cupping Yixing's cheeks, and then he's leaning in. Ghosting his lips over the corners of Yixing's mouth like he's still mapping out his path, looking for his way home. Then he feels it, Yixing's pulse on his skin, Yixing's cool fingers drumming a beat on his chest, Yixing whispering his name in the thinning distance between them like a mantra, a prayer. So he presses his lips on Yixing's own, sucks on Yixing's top lip, pulls away to catch Yixing's bottom lip between his teeth. Licks the corners of Yixing's mouth in swift, light motions, and coaxes them open when he brushes his thumb along Yixing's cheek. Yixing holds back a moan but doesn't quite hold back a whimper, and then he's laughing into the press of their lips, the inelegant slide of their mouths, the fit of their bodies. Joonmyun drinks it all up, then, swallows the sound whole when he claims Yixing's mouth again, licking the back of Yixing's teeth then sucking on his tongue. Commits every shift of the muscle, every hitch of the breath, every moan and groan and gasp that spills from Yixing's lips to memory when he sucks marks on the underside of Yixing's jaw. He can feel his lips burning, can see the pads of his fingers going lighter, paler, translucent, but they still have ten seconds. And ten seconds is all he needs to dip his head and memorize the way Yixing balls his hands into fists in Joonmyun's hair to break him off and leave marks on Joonmyun's skin, the way Yixing's voice trails off into a high trill when Joonmyun licks the shell of his ear and laughs against Yixing skin, wet and warm. The way their bodies align.

"Go," Joonmyun whispers, breathless when they part. He can still feel the slick of saliva pooling at the corners of his mouth, the way Yixing's nails catch on the buttons of his shirt at the sound of the alarm. Can see the faint blotches of white on Yixing's cheeks and his fingers losing color but feeling much, much warmer than before. So he says again, drawling his syllables this time as if offering Yixing something to hold onto, a lifeline Yixing can wrap his fingers around, "Go. _Now._ "

"I'll see you," Yixing says, voice cracking somewhere in between

Joonmyun laughs a little. The cuts on his lips sting and there a dull ache in his jaw and he's _losing himself again,_ every part of him going paler, but all these thoughts get swallowed by the feeling of his pulse thrumming in anticipation of the next big leap, the slow, simmering heat at the pit of his stomach coming to a boil.

"I'll see you," he echoes, then stands from his seat, slipping back into the mansion and not looking back. There's a bounce in his step.

It takes no more than five minutes to get from the garden at the back to the front door, no more than five minutes for him to regain some of his color. He can still see through his right hand, for the most part, and he still feels oddly light and a bit light-headed but every part of him feels warm, even more when he holds his hand up against the glass of the window by the door, splays the pale fingers on the cool surface, and sees the veins of Yixing's fingers on the other side. There are scars on Yixing's face from where he's touched Yixing too much, too long, but Yixing doesn't seem to mind – the situation they're in, the half-life they live, the burn of Joonmyun's touch on his skin, Joonmyun can't tell yet. All the knows is that they will always try to find holes in which they can fit, that they will always try to find ways to break down the glass keeping them apart. And that Yixing is smiling, the corners of his mouth stretched wide open, reaching up to the corners of his eyes and making them crinkle. Blinding Joonmyun, washing Yixing out. So Joonmyun closes his eyes and lets his face fall forward, forehead thunking against the glass, the soft thud mirroring on the other side.

He stays there and holds in his breath, listening to Yixing breathe.

☄

Spring crawls back with a familiar kind of warmth. Gone are the last dregs of snow on the streets, but from time to time Joonmyun still feels the cool breeze of winter weave his hair into a tangled mess, feels morning settle into place too slowly that he has to set three alarms just to make sure he does get up at six in the morning. The routine is still the same, for the most part – Joonmyun rouses before the sun rises and finds Sehun in the kitchen, already preparing breakfast. The scent of coffee wafts in the entire room, coaxing Joonmyun to come closer. If not, there will be an open bag of ground coffee resting just beside the coffee maker and Sehun's too busy trying to perfect sunny-side ups, or designing scrambled eggs with ketchup doodles that almost always include a smiley. And there's a bottle of milk balanced on the kitchen counter, then a soup pan on the stove. A pack of cookies to the right of the table arrangement on Joonmyun's side of the dining table. Little things that remind Joonmyun that Yixing has somehow carved a special niche in his life that's nigh impossible to ignore.

The hands of the clock shift, and Joonmyun looks up. It's only four in the morning, two hours before he has to get up and start crossing items off his to-do list. It's six degrees outside and his fingers feel like they might fall off anytime even with his gloves on and all the layers of clothes he's wearing, but he has to be here. In a minute, Yixing will appear at the doorstep to the garden. He'll be reaching out to ruffle Joonmyun's hair, then he'll drag his cool fingers down the slope of Joonmyun's neck. And then he'll pull Joonmyun close, close, _closer,_ until Joonmyun sees nothing, hears nothing but the loud thumping in Yixing's chest.

It's been half a year since he'd promised to himself never to get Yixing involved in any of his projects anymore, promised to himself to push Yixing away at the first opportunity instead of luring him in every single time their knuckles brush. It's been half a year since the disease Yixing had contracted from his sports – no, _bullying_ – injury was jolted back to activity and began to make its ascent, crawling from near his ankles to his calves, then all the way up to his thighs. Joonmyun can still remember that time, the first time they'd ever backed each other up against a wall or a plant or whatever surface they could lean on: Yixing dropped his hands from where he was cupping Joonmyun's cheeks and undid the buckle of his belt, then slid off his pants. Shook off the material where it was dangling off his ankle then surfaced only to kiss Joonmyun deeper, harder. When Joonmyun dropped to his knees and slid his hands down to map of the canvas of Yixing's skin with his hands, all he saw was patches of flesh on Yixing's left leg, then paling skin on the right. Dots of red where the flesh of his skin burned the brightest, then dark brown x marks along Yixing's inner thigh. Joonmyun was no stranger to it, but it felt different seeing it on someone else. And to an extent, it felt comforting knowing that he wasn't the only one losing parts of himself but finding these tiny gems of who he can be in others. Indelible marks on the skin from people who you care about the most.

"Are you sure you're okay with this?" Joonmyun had asked then, his mouth hovering Yixing's crotch. Yixing let out a low exhale, bucked his hips on instinct when Joonmyun leaned even closer. Joonmyun pressed his lips to Yixing's inner thigh, then, trailed kisses along the expanse of skin while he cupped Yixing's tenting erection through his briefs. "Just– Just let me know if you're not–"

"I'm okay with anything," Yixing answered, voice cracking as Joonmyun moved even closer. So Joomyun snuck his hands up the back of Yixing's legs, cupped his ass through his underwear, and pulled Yixing even closer until he was mouthing on Yixing's dick through the material of his briefs.

"How crazy are we," is Yixing's question today, five minutes past the hour and his arms wrapped around Joonmyun's waist. They're still covered in too many layers of clothes, for the most part, but Yixing already has his hands inside the back pockets of Joonmyun's pants, kneading Joonmyun's ass as he slips one leg between Joonmyun's own. We've done crazier things, Joonmyun wants to say – getting each other off in Yixing's Chevy Nova after one of their visits to the institute, after receiving news from Minseok that Yixing's doing much better. "As long as he keeps taking the pills and gets enough rest," Minseok had said then, pausing only to clear his throat, "– and by that, I mean a minimum of six hours of sleep, _stop groaning_ – he'll be alright. The virus in your bodies are taking longer to find each other and make your system go against you so contact should be fine, but _you know your limits._ Nothing in excess of an hour. Any more than that is deadly." So they set a timer for themselves – thirty minutes, so they'd have thirty more to just talk and laugh at each other and berate themselves for ever sullying the sanctity of Yixing's car. Thirty minutes to come down from the high, to remind themselves of the things they can have and those that they can't. _Thirty long minutes_ for them to ease back into reality.

And then there was that one time, the morning after Joonmyun had been cleared by the institute as someone who'd survived the highest, worst strain of the disease and had been bumped down to a C-class contaminant. Yixing showed up at Joonmyun's doorstep at half past five in the morning, a basket of food (cookies, Joonmyun thought they were going to have cookies for breakfast again) in one hand and a bottle of milk in the other. "Too early," Joonmyun had gasped then as Yixing sucked marks on the underside of his jaw, one hand guiding him to lie on the mat and the other sneaking past the waistband of Joonmyun's pants, stroking his length with his thumb. " _Too early_ for other kinds of milk."

"You're complaining about the time of the day and not the place?" Yixing asked then, chuckling. The vibrations of his laughter prickled Joonmyun's skin, made him shiver all over and buck into Yixing's touch all the more. "You're so weird."

"I am," Joonmyun whispered in response, popped himself against his arms so he could suck on Yixing's earlobe as some act of rebellion. "You like me, just the same."

Yixing hummed and pulled away for a while, only to claim Joonmyun's lips in a gentle kiss. "Yeah, I do," he said against the press of their lips, voice so soft he could have just been breathing. "I guess that makes two of us."

Yixing's brand of crazy this time is roaming his hands along the expanse of Joonmyun’s chest, coaxing Joonmyun to remove both of his jackets this and getting to unbuttoning Joonmyun's shirt so he can suck a trail of marks down the stretch of his torso. Joonmyun leans back against the cool wall for support, for balance, shivering when he feels the cool wind tousle his hair, but when he feels Yixing's lips, wet and warm, on his skin, he feels his knees give away. "This wasn't here before," Yixing murmurs against his skin, tracing lazy circles on a patch of skin, then looks up at Joonmyun through half-lidded eyes for the briefest of moments. He can feel the slow-forming smile on Yixing's lips, can feel Yixing's pattering pulse where their skins brush. Soon, Yixing's rubbing his thumb along the dip of Joonmyun's hips, pressing a kiss where his mouth reaches. "And this, too."

"They– I mean the doctors, Minseok-hyung and the others–" Joonmyun takes a deep, shaky breath, lips parting when he feels Yixing lave his tongue along the dip. "–said the recovery's sped up considerably and maybe I'll be off C-class in two weeks so we can go for that trip–"

Yixing pulls away, looking up at Joonmyun through the slits of his bangs, eyes wide open. Joonmyun's breath hitches at the sudden loss of warmth, at the cool winds curling around the area where Yixing's lips once were, but soon Yixing's pressing light kisses, tentative, almost _shy_ , like he's still trying to gather his words so here, Joonmyun, have a kiss in the mean time. Have a kiss and a wicked grin and my pulse on your skin as my answer. " _We?_ I thought that was supposed to be a solo trip?" Yixing asks after a while, his thumbs still rubbing circles on Joonmyun's skin but his gaze fixed on nothing, no one else but Joonmyun. Joonmyun feels his insides turn, feels his toes curl in at Yixing's warm spilling onto his skin. "You said you wanted to go to Seoraksan to let go of past grudges for your birthday and–"

"And to show you where I came from. Share–" Joonmyun's breath hitches, and his voice cracks when it peaks. He shakes his head. He reaches out, then, threading his fingers through Yixing's hair and coaxing Yixing to stand upright. Soon, they're skin on skin, caught in the messy web of their limbs, and Yixing's worrying his bottom lip and twisting his mouth like he can ever keep himself from smiling. "Share a piece of my past, since you've already introduced me to Lu Han and his family and his best friend's family and their cat–"

"The cat is part of my extended family," Yixing whispers. He leans his head on Joonmyun's shoulder, then tilts his head up a little to press a soft kiss to the underside of Joonmyun's jaw. "Like Sehun is part of yours."

"You saved the cat from dying, as well?"

Yixing laughs a little and shakes his head. Joonmyun feels a tingle in his toes again, a familiar sizzle crawling to his abdomen all the way down to the back of his knees. His body gives a tiny jerk; Yixing goes for the save, resting his hand on the small of Joonmyun's back. After a while, Yixing answers, "Nah, it was the other way around." He takes a deep breath, nose pressed to the slope of Joonmyun's neck, then murmurs, "I guess I have a thing for being saved."

No, you don't, Joonmyun wants to tell him, but his throat feels too tight and dry and his chest feels so heavy. And he's losing the feeling in his fingers, more and more as Yixing rubs up against him, knee brushing along his inner thigh. So instead, he presses his lips to Yixing's own, hoping Yixing will understand this – the slide of their limbs, the rhythmic beating in their chests, the fit of their bodies. The words that knock at the back of Joonmyun's lips, waiting for a clumsy enunciation – _You saved me._

 

 

They spend the next hour leading up to six in the morning sitting on the stairs near the front door, a good twelve inches between them, backs pressed to pillars behind them. They don't reach out to each other, don't touch, don't even look other in the eye, but they do listen – to Yixing talking about his plan of finally getting a new car, to Joonmyun wondering if he should maybe get a place closer to the city center, ten minutes away from where Yixing lives. To the booming sound of their ragged breathing, the seven-degree weather getting the better of them and the heat of their bodies. To the sound of footsteps shuffling closer until the door unlocks and Sehun greets them with a small smile, droopy eyes, and a faint, "Coffee's ready. The milk, too."

Yixing risks a glance at Joonmyun, eyes blowing wide. He doesn't say anything, doesn't even make a sound, so instead Joonmyun says it for him, the words coming to him all too easily – "Come in."

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The title was taken from Jack’s Mannequin’s MFEO + You Can Breathe. Give it a listen if you can; it’s a wonderful song and sort of tells _this story._  
>  2\. Some of the ages in the fic have been tweaked. Joonmyun, Yixing, and Yura are all 43, Minseok is 44, and Jongdae is 42.  
> 3\. Here's a [playlist](http://8tracks.com/dongsaengdeul/you-can-breathe), if you're interested! I'd definitely recommend listening to Up Dharma Down's "Blessed" for this fic.  
> 4\. Many, many thanks to Ansa who ironed out the plot with me and helped me figure out what I wanted to do with the fic, to Frances and Hyemi who have offered support and a shoulder to cry on in times of need. You are my heroes ♥


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